You begin the process of value creation by determining exactly what your customers want, need, and are willing to pay for.
- You determine the price you can charge to make sales in a competitive market.
- You decide exactly what combination of methods you will use to market, sell and promote your product or service.
- You determine the location and which you will offer your product or service.
- You decide upon your packaging and how every element of your business will appear to your customers.
- You determine your positioning and how you want to be described by customers and non-customers in your market.
- Finally, you select the key people who will be responsible for every step of the value creation chain.
A change in any one of these areas will have an effect on your profits, either positive or negative. The starting point for doubling your profitability is to examine each of these links and then think about things you could do to improve financial results at each step.
Jay Abraham, the marketing genius, teaches what he calls the Parthenon principle, like the Greek Parthenon in Athens. His insight is that by improving your results by only 10 percent in each of the key areas or key pillars of your business, the cumulative result will be a doubling of your financial results.