Summer 2008 - Marketing Dimensions from Felber & Felber Marketing and BIG MOVE ANNOUNCEMENT

	Summer 2008

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Create A Brand – YOU!

By Paul Kiewiet, MAS CIP, owner of BrandKiwi, LLC - Kalamazoo, Michigan
If you could make $1.00 per hour, $4.00 per hour, $40.00 per hour, $160.00 per hour or $600.00 per hour; which would choose? If you're still in the business of selling product to buyers, you're choosing the low end of the spectrum. If you're in the business of creating experiences for your customers, you can aspire to and achieve the top end. If you're focused on how to be the lowest priced company, you're working hard to commoditize yourself and are engaged in a zero sum game.
Nearly everything that can be raised, mined, harvested or slaughtered starts out its life as a commodity. And those who try to strip out costs and services are guilty of playing the price game rather than raising and creating value. Commodities are sold by traders and bought by markets and was the characteristic of the agrarian society.
When commodities get standardized, packaged, processed and inventories the value moves up as goods are born. Typically sold by manufacturers and bought by users, goods are typical of the industrial age. Many great brands were born in this age as marketers defined the unique selling proposition and stable easily defined markets behaved predictably and could be reached through mass media.
Many claim that the United States, having lost its manufacturing base is now a Service Economy. What does that really mean? Services are performed for people who are willing to pay extra to have someone else do something for them. As service providers, we customize our offerings for our customers who benefit from us doing the things that they just don't want to do themselves. There's a lot of competition in this space with most of the price concessions coming from the value we put on our own good service and intellectual property.
But the sweet spot and the fourth and fifth or more level of value come when we can move ourselves into becoming Experience Stagers. In today's economy our audiences or guests want sensations. They want meaning. They want value. These are intangibles that innovative, creative people can make happen if we learn to not just sell products or services, but to stage experiences. Welcome to the Experience Economy. This is a place where right brain thinkers, where creativity, where meaning and values rules. And people are willing to pay the price — your price — for your unique blend of Brand YOU.
In their seminal work, The Experience Economy, Joe Pines and James Gilmore give the example of a lowly coffee bean. When nature's gift gets picked by humans it becomes a commodity worth about $1.00 per pound. When a processor dries, roasts, packages and brands that coffee, it becomes a good selling for anywhere between $4.00 and $10.00 per pound depending on the level of distinction created around it. Take that same good and have Mabel brew up a cup of coffee for you at her diner and the service that you purchase for $1.00 per cup translates to $40.00 per pound for that same coffee. Wow! That's a big jump in value to the third level: service.
It doesn't stop there however. What happens when that coffee is brewed and served exactly to your liking, by an engaged and engaging barista, in atmosphere of community filled with rich coffee aroma and a wireless connection? Where instead of you taking their cup of coffee to work, you might bring your work to that cup of coffee? You guessed it, you're having a Starbucks Experience. And that $4.00 or $5.00 latte translates to $140.00 per pound for that same coffee bean that nature served up free. That is the fourth level of value.
And it doesn't need to stop there either. A few years ago, I enjoyed a morning cup of coffee in Venice on St. Mark's Square. Master Card said $15.00 per cup. That's over $600.00 per pound! But I didn't buy a cup of coffee. I bought a memory. I bought a special time that my wife and I will bore our children with 'til the day we die. I bought a moment and memory and a special shared experience with someone that I love. That is the highest level of value. It's a place where price is not a part of the value equation.
In order to raise your game, increase your value and your profit potential, you need to escalate your performance in two areas: competitive position and your relevancy to the needs of your customers.
How can you differentiate yourself from your competition? What are your unique skills, ideas, personal strengths, core values and mission that make you the only game in town? Find them and work them.
And how can you be more relevant to the needs of your customers? How can you become a part of their business? What things are they doing that you can do better and more efficiently? What ideas can you generate proactively that will create a sense of team and partnership? Can you customize your offerings so that you become an extension of your clients' organizations? How can you make them feel? If your answer to that question is that you can make them feel that they got the best price, you've opened the door for anyone who can give them the same feeling.
Your life work should allow you to become the best you possible. To reach your best potential, you need to live out your values with passion and commitment. Your customers will feel it. They'll know it and appreciate it. Change the game. Instead of looking for what can be cut, focus on the value that can be created. Get in the business of creating results, meaning, engagement, relationships and experiences.
Welcome to the Experience Economy! Welcome to Brand You.

ABOUT THE GUEST BLOGGER: Paul A. Kiewiet, MAS CIP is the owner of BrandKiwi, LLC. He is a twenty-five year veteran of the promotional products and premium incentive industries and is the immediate past chairman of PPAI. By connecting people with values, Paul Kiewiet, speaker, teacher, facilitator, trainer and coach helps people find the best in themselves so that they can become their best selves. To learn more, visit www.paulkiewiet.com, e-mail paul@brandkiwi.com or call 269-806-4489.

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