Reading Time: 3 minutesIn his last Angry Essay, Fernando guided us through a very interesting point of view. According to him, great sellers don’t actually sell. Okay, we can say that officially they do… But that only happens because they previously delivered something. “What did they deliver?”, we all wonder. The answer is value.
The concept of delivering value and creating relationships shouldn’t be that strange to inbound marketers. But, what exactly can be perceived as something valuable? Is it a new feature? A 50% discount? An e-book? Maybe all the previous options. The truth is that there isn’t a formula and what works for some doesn’t work for everyone.
When we try everything and we still don’t get results, we tend to blame the product. It’s low quality or maybe there isn’t a market for it. But, what if that’s not the answer? What if, instead of focusing on the product, we choose to focus on the human experience that comes with it? How can it be different? How can it be better?
UX/UI designers have done a great a job here. Usability tests are an awesome way to understand what people really want. Usually, they want something simpler, but that’s not all. They want something different, something immersive, something that makes them feel heard and engaged. And that kind of value can only be given by an experience.
Experiences and how they are important
Even though having the best product in the market is still very important, we also can say that we should spend more time designing experiences. Going back to Fernando’s essay about the act of selling, great sales people are surely experience-creators. They’re the ones that are capable of getting people’s interest in a non-obvious way. The ones that turn a pitch into a really interesting interaction that is not about themselves.
Here, in Angry Ventures, we believe that people choose to work with us not because we’re the best, but because of the work experience we are capable of offering. More than ever, I personally believe that the market shouldn’t fully define the company’s positioning. Yes, we need the skills and the knowledge about who our typical client is, but that is not everything.
If you enter a competition in which you are completely defined by what others do, then you become like any other. When or if that happens, your identity becomes useless. We all want to grow, we all want new clients, but if we have to sell our souls to get them, then our positioning isn´t worth anything.
The process of designing experiences
Designing experiences isn’t new. If you consider the services sector (restaurants, hotels or even stores), it becomes obvious that people tend to choose the place where they are treated better. That happens mostly in services because they naturally require a human interaction. When we’re speaking about products, it becomes trickier: the company tends to grow and be defined by the product and that doesn’t always translate into personality.
To match experiences and products, there must be alignment between everyone who works for the company: the people who make up the company on a daily basis. That comprehension doesn’t have to be rational. In fact, it doesn’t have to be obvious for both employees and customers. It must be felt rather than thought of.
Recently, I went to IKEA. Like everyone who goes there, I spent hours inside the store: I saw thousands of examples of how decoration stuff could be used, I had lunch there and found out about workshops that help people decorate small spaces. Despite the products they sold and what I bought, what got my attention was the experience. And, isn’t that something?
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