In business it’s just not good enough to be vague about the value you create for your clients …

I’d love a dollar for every conversation I’ve had with business owners who balk at laying down a clear expression of the value they create for their clients.

Those conversations show up in lots of ways:

“We can’t guarantee what we do because so much of the result depends on the client …”

“It’s hard to be totally specific about what we deliver because there are so many variables …”

“We have to be careful about what we promise …”

I get it, all of these statements are true, but here’s the issue.

If we are vague about what we do for our clients, is it okay for them to be vague about how they pay us?  Would any of us be happy for the client to say “I’ll pay you sometime this year, I just can’t be specific about when or how”.

The problem here is that the solutions we provide are not as easily measurable as the money we’re paid.  A dollar is a dollar, once handed over to us, it will perform exactly how we expect it to.  But will the solution being offered to the customer perform exactly as it is expected to?

We can’t be vague about the promise we’re making and expect the customer to be specific about how and when they’ll pay us.  We all have a responsibility to capture a clear, tangible and structured expression of value that the customer can be confident about.  

It’s not enough to just tell the customer about the value we offer – we have to SHOW them.  They need to be able to SEE an organised framework of genius that will deliver the result they are expecting.

We use the Genius Model to do this – I’d love to know how you express your clear, tangible and structured value?