"Time is a path from the past to the future and back again. The present is the crossroads of both."
"We have differences. May we, together, become greater than the sum of both of us."
- Market: for which market is the value proposition being created?
- Value experience or customer experience: what does the market value most? The effectiveness of the value proposition depends on gathering real customer, prospect or employee feedback.
- Offering: which products or services are being offered?
- Benefits: what are the benefits the market will derive from the product or service?
- Alternatives and differentiation: what alternative options does the market have to the product or service?
- Proof: what evidence is there to substantiate your value proposition?
"There is no such thing as “rational purchase”. All purchases are emotional, and impulsive. Some just require more rational justification than others."
"The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!"
Chuma and Azur
A great Egyptian pharaoh summons his two young nephews, Chuma and Azur, and he commissions them to a majestic task: Build two monumental pyramids as a tribute to Egypt. Upon completion of each nephew’s pyramid, Pharaoh promises each an immediate reward of kingship, retirement a midst riches, and lavish luxury for the rest of their natural lives. Additionally, each nephew must construct his pyramid alone. Chuma and Azur, both 18, know their daunting task will take years to complete. Nonetheless, each is primed for the challenge and honored by the Pharaoh’s directive. They exit Pharaoh’s chambers ready to begin the long pyramid-building process. Azur begins work immediately. He slowly drags large heavy stones into a square formation. After a few months, the base of Azur’s pyramid takes shape. Townsfolk gather around Azur’s constructive efforts and praise his handiwork. The stones are heavy and difficult to move, and after one year of heavy labor, Azur’s perfect square foundation to the pyramid is nearly finished. But Azur is perplexed. The plot of land that should bear Chuma’s pyramid is empty. Not one stone has been laid. No foundation. No dirt engravings. Nothing. It’s as barren as it was a year ago when Pharaoh commissioned the job. Confused, Azur visits Chuma’s home and finds him in his barn diligently working on a twisted apparatus that resembles some kind of human torture device.
Azur interrupts, “Chuma! What the hell are you doing!? You’re supposed to be building Pharaoh a pyramid and you spend your days locked in this barn fiddling with that crazy machine?” Chuma cracks a smile and says, “I am building a pyramid, leave me alone.” Azur scoffs, “Yeah, sure you are. You haven’t laid one stone in over a year!” Chuma, engrossed and unfazed by his brother’s accusation retorts, “Azur, you’re shortsightedness and thirst for wealth have clouded your vision. You build your pyramid and I will build mine.”
As Azur walks away, he chides, “You fool! Pharaoh will hang you in the gallows when he discovers your treason.” Another year passes and Azur solidifies the base of his pyramid and begins the second level. Except a problem arises. Azur struggles in his progress. The stones are heavy and he cannot raise them to the pyramid’s second level. Challenged by his physical limitations, Azur recognizes his weakness: he needs more strength to move heavier stones, and to do so, seeks the counsel of Bennu, Egypt’s strongest man. For a fee, Bennu trains Azur to build bigger and stronger muscles. With great strength, Azur anticipates the heavier stones will be easier to lift onto the higher levels.
Meanwhile, Chuma’s pyramid plot of land is still barren. Azur assumes his brother has a death wish since, by all appearances, Chuma is violating Pharaoh’s mandate. Azur forgets about his brother and his nonexistent pyramid. Another year passes and Azur’s pyramid construction slows to a disheartening crawl. It often takes one month just to place one stone. Moving stones to the upper levels require great strength and Azur spends much of his time working with Bennu to build greater strength. Additionally, Azur is spending most of his money on counseling fees and the exotic diet required for the training. Azur estimates at his current construction pace, his pyramid will be completed in another 30 years. Unfazed, Azur lauds, “After three years, I’ve far surpassed my brother. He hasn’t placed one stone yet! That fool!”
Then, suddenly, one day while hauling a heavy stone up his pyramid, Azur hears a loud commotion erupting from the town square. The townsfolk, regular observers to his work, abruptly abandon his plot to examine the celebratory fuss. Curious himself, Azur takes a break and leaves to investigate.
Surrounded by a cheering crowd, Chuma trolls up the town square commandeering a 25-foot contraption, a towering machine built from a twisted maze of gantries, wheels, levers, and ropes. As Chuma slowly moves up the village street amidst the buoyant crowd, Azur fears the explanation. After a short trawl to Chuma’s barren pyramid plot, Azur’s suspicions are confirmed.
Within minutes, Chuma’s strange machine starts moving heavy stones and begins to lay the foundation to his pyramid. One after another, the machine effortlessly lifts the stones and softly places them side-by-side into place. Miraculously, the machine requires little effort for Chuma’s operation. Crank a wheel attached to a rope and cantilever entwined by a gear system, and bingo! Heavy stones are moved quickly and magically. While Azur’s pyramid foundation took over a year to build, Chuma lines up the foundation to his pyramid within one week. The second level that Azur so arduously struggled with is even more shocking: Chuma’s machine does the work 30 times quicker. What took Azur two months takes Chuma’s machine two days. After 40 days, Chuma and his machine accomplish as much as Azur’s three years of toilsome work.
Azur was destroyed. He spent years doing the heavy lifting while Chuma built a machine to do it for him.
Instead of honoring the machine, Azur vows, “I must get stronger! I must lift heavier stones!” Azur continues the hard labor of pyramid building while Chuma continues to work the crank of his machine.
After eight years, Chuma finishes his pyramid at age 26: three years to build the system and five years to reap the benefits of the system. The great pharaoh is pleased and does as promised. He rewards Chuma with kingship and endows him with great riches. Chuma never has to work another day in his life.
Meanwhile, Azur continues to dredge away at the same old routine. Lift rocks, waste time and money to get stronger, lift rocks, and get stronger. Sadly, Azur refuses to acknowledge his flawed strategy and endures the same old process: Carry heavy stones until you can lift no more … then get stronger so you can lift heavier stones. This mindless prescription leads Azur to a lifetime of toil. He never finishes his pyramid promised to Pharaoh simply because he decides to do the heavy lifting himself when he should have focused on a system to do it for him. Azur has a heart attack and dies while on the 12th level of his pyramid, just two levels from finishing. He never experiences the great riches promised by Pharaoh.
Meanwhile, Chuma retires 40 years early in a crown of luxury. Sloshing in free time, Chuma goes on to become Egypt’s greatest scholar and an accomplished inventor. He is entombed alongside Pharaoh in the same pyramid he built.
"Look forward to the good that is yet to be."
(出典: mail.google.com)
Takeaway from today
How can you use your expertise to benefit the greater good of humanity? in scale?
Calculate what you need to do to have a significant impact on society.
Set numerical goals.
Takeaways from today’s meeting
How can what you do, influence your country?
What is your aspiration?
"True wealth is people, health, and freedom. Anything other than that will only take from you. Invest wisely."
5 Steps to Turning a Service Into a Product
1. Identify something you can replicate repeatedly – The idea behind a product is that you want to be able to get paid for selling a “thing” and not selling your time. Also, you want to sell the “same” thing over and over if you are to achieve operational efficiencies and decent profits. Look around at what you do. Chances are, if you’ve been in business for a while, you have developed a process you follow closely for at least one service. You may not even realize you have a distinct process until you set out to identify it – but you have something. If that something is in reasonable demand, you have the start of a “product.”
2. Document it – Turn your process into a manufacturing-like assembly line. Break it down into steps that can be performed over and over, by people you can train for the job. Document those steps in detail so that you can calculate the costs involved, and so that your knowledge is transferable.
3. Put limits around your offering – Many services are “squishy” and open ended. For a product you need the opposite — an offering that is well-defined. Set limits to your offering: time limitations; the deliverables included; a flat fee price; a name you can refer to your product by.
About Small Business Canada notes:
“You give it a defined scope, fit it into a limited time period, assign it a definite price tag, and attach a distinctive name. Let’s say you are an image consultant, and you’ve been selling your time for $75 per hour. Instead, you offer a ‘One-Day Makeover’ at a price of $495, and include a wardrobe assessment, color consultation, and shopping trip.”
4. Incorporate technology – A technology component for processing sales or delivering your service further establishes the impression that it is a product. For example, look at how companies such as LegalZoom have put a website front-end on what are still basically services – cementing the perception of a product offering. The website streamlines and automates functions to a large degree, too, with the potential to drive out costs. But the key is that with the help of technology, it looks like a tangible thing, and so customers perceive it as a product.
5. Build an organization – Even if it’s just you today, over time you will need to involve others in producing, selling and distributing your product. No one wants to buy a business that is a one-man or one-woman show – they want to buy a company. Besides, it can’t be just YOU because YOU are not scalable. Add “labor” to “manufacture” your product, sales reps to sell it, and management to run daily operations. Build a team that is skilled and knowledgeable, and able to operate without your daily intervention.
How to Turn A Service Into A Product
1. Before rolling out any new service make sure it can be duplicated quickly and that it is well documented. It has to become a template. Everyone has to know what job positions handle the various aspects of the service, what the time frames are like, and what the costs are.
2. Implementing training programs to ramp people faster. The hard part here is to make sure you consistently update those programs as your service, platform, and the industry evolves.
3. Implement tracking and hold people accountable.
4. Reward and recognize those individuals that are consistent and improve the process.
5. Always identify tools to help speed up the time it takes to perform a task. A service should not be launched if it does not have at least one tool to speed up the process.
6. Your marketing department/person needs to make all your services look and feel like a product.
7. Create a repository of all processes that is well organized and can be easily searched. Lots of people are using Wiki’s these days. We use PBwiki but I am not thrilled about it.
8. You need leaders who want to control process and be responsible for packaging it.
9. Create a process to figure out the best way to create a process, i.e. a template for your template.
10. Be disciplined to always follow the process and never deter, unless its to improve the process. As your business matures its less about taking a deal because someone is willing to pay you, and more about taking a deal because you have a process that will allow you to knock it out of the park. This will keep you focused and close to your vision.
(出典: jaredreitzin.com)
