What is Value? Is it a static concept? What influences it? Any constraints or factors that involves it? How do I build it? Short term vs long term?

These are the common questions that everyone in the business world has faced now or before. These questions are very “valuable” and should not just apply to a business only but to everything a business influences. But let’s break it down in simple terms and how to “build” upon it!

Value can both be a noun and a verb. Which means that it is not just a static concept but something that has a large influence.

Noun: “the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.”

Verb: “estimate the monetary worth of.”

In simpler business terms: How much is something worth in terms of both emotional and physical concept. Physical value is something easy like the price of the product or the cost of a service. Emotional value is something along the lines of “How does this product make me feel?” or “After using this service, do I feel better?”. Believe me, building emotional value is much harder than the physical value. But nonetheless both can be achieved.

How do I build my business’ physical/emotional value? Simple. Just think of how much you can provide to the customers and how your product/service can benefit the customer while earning the business money.

I have a client whose business is purely trading goods from other countries and selling it for a profit. The products by itself is a hit or miss with the customers because they do not have prior knowledge nor experience with the product. So regardless on how hard you sale the product, customers won’t know what you are talking about or the benefits of it, therefore I come into the picture.

I advised the client simple tactics on how to build a product’s value from nothing to something. There are indeed many ways and in simpler terms is to let the customers familiarize themselves with the product through the five senses (6th if you are into that stuff). Stated again, building the emotional value takes a longer time because it is just not a instant thing. Since humans take time to learn new things, therefore, constant effort is needed. Remember at this stage do not do anything new, just keep doing what was advised on building the emotional value. This is because most often companies fail to realise this: Emotional value (like the physical value counterpart) can be changed. If it does, the hard work that was done before, would go down the drain. After that, it is better to start a new campaign because the chances of realigning the customer’s view of the emotional value with the company are slim.

Remember. The reason why constant effort is needed is to allow customers to have a certain emotional value to conceptualize within them. Therefore one value must be formed in order for a new one to be able to be associated. This takes time!

Anyways, business sales went up and the market reacted positively. All is good and all is well right?

No. It was not enough. I, then, created a contract for the supplier to allow my client to become the distributing agent within the country of my client. Solidifying business even further. For the physical value of the product, I advise the business to seek opportunities to raise a little and then provide ample discount opportunities so that customers can afford it and also the previous physical/emotional concept that was built isn’t deteriorated.

Again there are many ways and tactics that can be employed into building the physical and emotional value. However, the end goal is the same. My advice is to not overthink about the ways and tactics but to do “what needs to be done” in order to achieve the end goal.

If there are any questions or you would like to discuss anything, feel free to leave a comment below!