Yesterday I met someone on twitter, a lady with a webshop where you can buy marketing products and courses. I asked her whether she has set-up the shop herself. "Yes I did" she wrote "and I am proud of it". Then she asked me: why do you want to know? I answered "Just curious whether you were looking for a specific or a generic solution to get the result". She was puzzled.
Choose wisely
Clients want to achieve their goal as easy and efficient as possible. To find the best way, you have to choose how to get there. The way is different to everyone. There are several tools and methods you can use to get a unique result. Most of the tools are very generic, but some are very specific. Anyway, who cares? The biggest concern is to be sure that you get the most unique result. And this unicity can be achieved by the right balance between working with generic and specific methods. Roughly you can say: generic is achieved by automation, unique is achieved by labour. It is silly to write an internal memo in handwriting, scan it and send it to your colleagues by email. On the other hand, you do not promote your products with UBR’s (Unique Buying Reasons) of a case literal copied from a good marketing book.The Labour Spot in practice
With my design company, I am always curious to the way a client is used to work and in what way my added value is optimized to the final result. Sometimes it is a challenge to discover the spot where maximum of effect can be added by labour, the "Labour Spot". Knowing that spot is very valuable for everyone. How to discover that spot?- Explore what is the highest valued first thing for the client to do
- Ask yourself: can we use a solution that is general and proven
- Is it useful to automate the solution
- Is there a repetitive pattern to be discovered
- Is it possible to deliver a unique result with a general way of working
- Having the best partners who help executing the generic parts in the process
- Working agile
- Stay on top of all social and technical "tools"
- Being strict in dropping everything that does not add value
- Use the client's processes and knowledge as much as possible