Creating Customer Value with Derek Hendrikz

Derek Hendrikz
www.derekhendrikz.com

 The professional salesperson
should compete upon the one
tenet most vendors overlook:
value.
 In today's economy, more than
ever, you must link the value of
your offering to your customer.
And to your customers'
customer.

 Your company doesn't corner the
market.
 Internet has given your customers
the world.
 Global business is now local business.

 With cheap vendors creating quality
marketing materials, and sound vendors
creating boring marketing materials, how
can the customer know which vendor to
choose?
 And due to this clutter, many customers
simply close their eyes and ears altogether.

They're likely questioning you more than you
question them.
Drawbacks of not positioning your company as such are obvious:
 You do nothing to stand out - you're just another wolf
in the pack.
 You create no compelling reason for the customer to
"listen."
 You don't fill your customer's need to be heard and
understood.
 You'll be replaced by the sharp vendor that makes
this link
(if you're lucky enough to retain the customer
initially).

 Creating a conceived linkage to a tangible benefit.
 Forming mental context.
 Directing an experience.
 Creating a means of self-presentation.
 Creating a means to deliver a message.
 Building a social / cultural authority.
 Creating a ‘long hand’.
 Creating an ‘alter ego’.
 Building an emotional gym.
 Facilitating fantasies.

 The most basic level of branding is creating a
conceived linkage between the brand name and
other identifiers and a tangible benefit (a result
in the physical world or an experience).
 That benefit is provided by the product itself or
any component of the marketing mix.
 Don't dismiss this basic tenet.
 Successful brands, like Pantene shampoo (which
promises to amend the six symptoms of
unhealthy hair), work at this level.
 The added value here is minimal, but important.

 A "mental context" is a concept or an organizing principle
that allows the consumer to connect unrelated facts (such
as the various marketing activities of a company) by guiding
intent or by some other common factor.
 In these cases, the main benefit of the brand to its
customers originates in the mental context.
 For example: should you stumble into a hotel like the
"Hudson" or the "Royalton" in the heart of Manhattan, you
are promised pleasure on different levels, but if you know
you're in a "Boutique Hotel" your stay becomes a very
different experience altogether.
 The Boutique Hotel is a concept that features differences
between various hotels in the same chain—sometimes
difference between rooms within the same hotel.
 This mental context drives you to a quest to find the
differences.

 This is essentially a hypnotic effect,
in some cases related to placebo.
 The branding here is the creation of
an expectation that allows an
experience richer than what the
product alone can offer.
 For instance, Red Bull will make the
consumer feel a wave of energy
beyond the physical effect of the
drink.

 Here the branding creates a symbol with a
meaning that is well known to everybody in a
relevant group.
 It enables the consumer to characterize himself
and is used by him for inner communication (to
gather motivation for an effort or to strengthen
self-image), for interpersonal communication (to
create a certain impression) and for public
communication (to signal status or affiliation).
 he Absolut vodka brand became a way for
yuppies to signal their yuppie-ness to other
yuppies (when the yuppie group was
developing).

 The branding role in this approach is to create a
symbol of another kind, its meaning widely known as
well.
 That kind of symbol enables the consumer to make a
very specific statement and/or express a very specific
emotion.
 The diamond giant De Beers made the diamond a
means of expressing commitment, making the
physical fact that a diamond is indestructible a
metaphor for the relationship.
 In September 2003, De Beers started creating a new
means to deliver a message, this time targeted at
women: the right-hand Ring as a symbol of
independence (as apposed to the ring on the left
hand, which is often a symbol of commitment).

 The next branding approach is the creation
of an authority that the consumers can use
as a guide.
 That guide helps them to understand what's
happening around them and informs them
which behavioral ways are normative, what
will make them happier and so on.
 Apple proclaimed itself to be such an
authority when it offered the personal
computer not only as a working tool but also
as a device for self-expression and
creativity.
 The brand started a cultural trend of giving a
wide variety of means for ordinary people to
express their creativity.

 The branding creates means for the consumer
and empowering him or her to act for noble
objectives and high purposes that she can't
achieve by herself.
 The Body Shop made buying a way for
contributing to the preservation of the
environment and helping people in need all
around the globe.

 The brand is a way for the consumer to behave
(at least on a fantasy level) in a manner he would
like to but doesn't dare, or isn't willing to pay the
price for.
 The provocation of the fashion brand Diesel is
made as if "in the name of" the brand customers.
 They can feel as if they are provocative
themselves every time the brand launches one of
its outrageous advertising campaigns.

 Opting for our civilized and protected lifestyle,
we compromise a lot of our possibilities as
humans.
 We go to the gym to prevent the degeneration
of our bodies, which because of our lifestyles
don't get to face the challenges they are
otherwise capable of confronting.
 Similarly, we watch movies to exercise
emotional skills that aren't legitimate or
acceptable in our lifestyles.
 Brands, like Sicily from Dolce & Gabbana, allow
us too to experience such emotional
possibilities.

 Similar to the previous one, this
branding approach helps the consumer
to fantasize an alternative reality.
 Consumers fantasize about irresistible
sex appeal, omnipotence and
dominance, importance, success, fatal
love, murder and so on.
 The brand Timberland was designed as
a way for consumers to fantasize about
courageous adventures against the
forces of nature

o Know processes
o Effective processes
o Follow policy and procedures
o Constantly review policy and
procedures
o Surveys or questionnaires

DerekHendrikz

Creating Customer Value with Derek Hendrikz

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (11)

Similar to Creating Customer Value with Derek Hendrikz

Similar to Creating Customer Value with Derek Hendrikz (20)

More from Derek Hendrikz

More from Derek Hendrikz (17)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Creating Customer Value with Derek Hendrikz