Wednesday Words

To Go Where Your VisionPoints, a few inspiration points for you and your business.

As they say on my own Cape Cod, a rising tide lifts all the boats. And a partnership, by definition, serves both partners, without domination or unfair advantage. Together we have been partners in adversity—let us also be partners in prosperity.
—President John F. Kennedy, address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche, Frankfurt, West Germany, June 25, 1963

So Kennedy’s talking about macroeconomics. Making the economy at large better, makes all the little guys’ lives better within the economy. But I think his tide can lift your boat, too.

This quotation gets me right in my post-hippie guts. I want my business to grow. (Doesn’t sound hippie, but hang on…) My business grows by making your business grow. If I can show you how your business will grow with the help of mine, you hire us.

Not because you care if my business grows. Because you care whether yours does.

That rising tide lifts both our boats.

I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking about what makes us buy lately. Cost/benefit analyses. Cost/cost-of-delay analyses. Cost v. mess, cost v. stress, cost v. time, lack of expertise, risk of screwing up… look how everything in B2B (business to business) transactions comes down to $$$! It sounds so mercenary!

But you and I both know—everything comes down to cost-versus-something. B2C (… consumer), also. Today I got a pumpkin muffin to take home at my favorite bagel shop. $$ v. being a hero to The Kid (she loves their limited-time fall muffins). Sure, it was a low-investment, low-risk situation, so the internal debate wasn’t lengthy, but it’s always there.

Pizza tonight? Cost v. effort to make dinner when I’m exhausted. (Jury’s still out. I’ll let you know.)

The guitar I bought The Kid a few weeks back? Cost v. hero-angle again. (Hey. I’m a mama. The hero-angle sells.)

And back to B2B. I want a new printer. Cost versus hassles and maintenance issues of the aging old printer. You want to know why your website’s not selling. Cost of finding out versus potential for increased sales. You consider upgrading your trucks, hiring a new salesperson, leasing a larger office space… it all comes down to analyzing cost v. benefits in some way.

So to create Maximum Customer Experience for your customers, at the most knee-jerk level, all you have to do is show that their benefits will be (significantly) more than their costs. (It would be nice if that were as easy as it sounds!)

The ideal to work toward: Demonstrate very concretely—in terms of $$ whenever possible—that you can make their business work better. Your business will work better, without domination or unfair advantage, and you can feel great about it in a fuzzy, hippie way.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

 

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

P.S. As a Massachusetts Irishwoman born and raised in the long shadow of the Kennedys, I think I’ve exercised quite a bit of restraint waiting until my 400th post to tip my hat to JFK.  :)

I’d like to take just a second to tip my hat to you, also. Dear reader, thanks for being with me for the last 400. I hope we’ll make the tide rise, together, for another 400—and many more.

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