Creating marketplace demand for what you love to do rather than chasing after the demands of the marketplace is the key to sustaining your competitive advantage, increased prosperity, and life-long satisfaction.
We live in an era of abundant choice. In fact customers have so much choice in the marketplace, they’re overwhelmed and numb. As an early-stage entrepreneur who desires to have more impact, influence and income, you’ve probably wrestled with many ideas on how best to increase the demand for your products and services. Many entrepreneurs I work with want solid answers to these questions:
- How do I separate my business or brand from the alternatives my customers have?
- How can I create greater demand for what I love to do?
- What can I do to influence a prospective customer’s decision to do business with me?
Be a value creator as opposed to an order-taker. When you create real value for others first, you instantly expand your ability to influence demand for your products and services. You become a Value Creator. Orders-takers, on the other hand, are content to supply the existing demands of customers by offering them me-too products and services at the lowest price possible. Anytime customers have an abundant choice of alternatives to meet their needs, they set the price–reducing your impact and influence in the buyer’s mind, and your power in the buying cycle. In a market with abundant choices, customers will view any stated price as too high!
To elevate your business from the fray of the competitive plane– where order-takers battle each other for business–your value proposition to the marketplace must be highly valued and radically differentiated from the abundance of alternatives bouncing around in your customer’s mind.
To be a Value Creator will require you to elevate your thinking and actions to the higher creative plane–where inspiration, innovation, potential and possibility fuel your passion to make a difference for people.
Value creators view their business as a venue for this creative expression. As a result, their customers and clients happily show their appreciation for the value they receive by paying the premium prices that funds their ability to continue to create ever-greater value in the marketplace. Think about it–which type of entrepreneur do you want to be? When it comes to attracting opportunity, which one will command a bigger share of the pie? Here are five characteristics that all Value Creators possess. Do any of these resonate within you?
Value Creators understand the principle of flow and infinite supply. Value Creators have a higher awareness of their own natural flow, their path of least resistance. They are amazingly efficient and do everything in an easy and relaxed manner. Value creators believe there is no shortage of supply. Consequently they have an uncanny sense of clarity and confidence to identify and pursue their best opportunities.
At their core, value creators know who they are, what unique and highly valued talents and capabilities they possess, and how to apply these gifts to the marketplace in ways that influence a highly targeted tribe of like-minded people. Value creators always begin with what’s at hand. They don’t wait for the visible supply to be favorable. They understand all value comes from raw ideas, born within their creative imagination, and energized into existence by their passion and perseverance to align and pursue what matters to them with serving the good of others.
Value Creators are good and different. Value Creators represent something that is highly valued by customers and radically differentiated from available alternatives in the marketplace. There is no room left for me-too anything. Value Creators are specialized providing deep and narrow expertise to build higher value relationships with customers. Being highly focused on what matters to their customers allows them to be trusted. As a result, they gather the momentum necessary to rapidly influence people and create ever-greater demand for their products and services.
Value Creators are masters at leverage. Value Creators recognize the extraordinary power of collaboration, partnerships, and alliances with other types of people who are genius at helping them magnify their impact and influence in the marketplace. Value Creators humbly begin everything they pursue with a couple of fish and three loaves of bread–then magnify their resources to feed the hungry multitudes. They understand leveraging the right skills, talents, resources, and the systems of others are absolutely essential for success– and are the force multipliers that create greater demand for their products and services.
Value Creators are selective with their time and energy. Value Creators are highly selective. Value Creators spend all their time and energy focused only on their best opportunities. They say “no” more often than “yes”, and they elevate themselves from any task or complexity that involves procrastination. They know which customers or clients represent the highest-value relationships, and they place all their focus and attention on serving just those clients. As a result, their business development initiatives produce an abundance of inbound inquiries from customers-to-be that are forming a line at their door.
Value Creators play the game of life at the highest levels. Value Creators engage life with wonder, openness, optimism and passion. If life was a video game (as it very well might be), Value Creators are playing at the highest levels of mastery and know where all the extra lives and ammo is hidden. Value Creators light the way for themselves and others simply by the “quality of their presence”. Every expression of their presence in the world is a reflection of how they lead their own life. Value Creators know all the Jedi mind tricks that influence people.
If you want to increase your impact, influence and income, develop the discipline to embed a Value Creator consciousness into your creative thinking on a daily basis. Focus all your energy creating demand for what you love rather than chasing after the demands of the marketplace. When you do, you’ll create far more demand for your scene rather than having to settle for competing with a slush pile of order-takers who meet the low value demands of the status quo.
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