Where is the Value in Your Business Service or Product?

22 November 2010

On the road to creating a business, you'll ask yourself a lot of questions about exactly what you're providing to potential customers and why they will hopefully spend time and money to do business with you. You'll question your business idea. You'll question your marketing approach. More than anything, however, you'll question your product/service.

Whether you're providing web design services or a standalone product that designs Web Pages, for example, you'll inevitably struggle in finding the true value of this merchandise. Why? It all has to do with where the actual value of any product or service lies: with the customers.

Think about the best idea you've ever entertained and imagine it on the market. You know it works; you know it will help people. You know exactly how you want to market it and exactly how you want it perceived. What you can't know, however, what you'll never know, is how valuable customers find this item.

Face it: your opinion about your product or service is biased. It has to be if it's yours. If you're like most normal people who use positive visualization when trying to open a business, then you already feel as if your product is the best thing in it's respective niche. This can cloud your judgment and lead to failure if you don't work to find the true value of your product.

So, where is the true value of your business product/service? Its all in the function. If the product you're selling truly helps buyers in the ways they're hoping it will when they make the investment, then you have a valuable product on your hands. Likewise with a service if it does what its expected to do, then its valuable.

This is dangerous ground, although it seems extremely simplistic. Because you're going to be partial to your own goods/services, you'll never be able to accurately gauge how others will like your product until others try it out for themselves. This is how you can find the true value of what you're selling to make sure you're bringing something solid to the table.

Maybe you can go the focus group route to see how well your product is received. This is always a good idea for businesses. It will help you make any necessary changes to adjust your product/services value before you take it to market.

You could also give a select few people your product or perform your service. Think of friends here, as family is far more likely to give you an encouraging opinion instead of an honest one. Most friends, however, wont mind being honest with you if they know that's what you're after.

Also, find out what people like the most about your product or service. This way, you can work to emphasize the positive here and exponentially increase the value by putting your product in a good light.

Judging the value is going to be an ongoing process. Just remember that it's something you cant do by yourself. Let users/customers decide the value and adjust where necessary to increase it.