MARKETPLACE STRATEGIST: THE ENTREPRENEUR'S CODE OF CONDUCT

Copyright © 2012, Marketplace Strategist. All rights reserved.

Of recent sphere of influence has been a competitive race where everyone is busy getting incentives for their business. Somehow, somewhere branding is taking place but not all are treading the true path of this concept ‘branding’. What you don’t know will later turn out to be what will hurt you. The primary motive of every business is to solve a problem by adding value through the aid of rendering qualitative services and solutions that will answer the missing link “problems”.

This to some extent might not appease the money-driven entrepreneurs who have been taught wrong principle that business is all about profit making even if it’s not solving problems. It’s the problem you solve that earns you profit which is an exchange for the services you’ve provided…WITHOUT PROBLEMS, NO BUSINESS PROFIT! Business is born when you anticipate a problem that need to be solved. In life, “you don’t seek a business rather you seek problem that give birth to business”.

To earn that profit in your business, you must first believe in your product that it is proven to proffer solutions to your client’s problems. The reason why your client keeps patronizing you is because they believe in your brand that it’s fit to solve their problems. Belief in your product/brand to some large extent stimulates and boosts your brand selling strategies cum level of self confidence.

Cogitate: you can’t effectively sell your brand/product if you don’t place value on them. The value you placed on your products determines the confidence in their abilities of satisfying the daily needs of your customers/clients. For instance if I must convince clients on my brand, I should have first showed premium of confidence in a principle I proposed as a brandmaster for training and consulting client on brand/strategy development and business principles – reliability (ability to reproduce or multiply with consistency, accuracy and precision par time) and validity (ability to measure up and maintain high standard in a dynamic way) of the brand before marketing it to prospective target audience. That coupled with professionalism and integrity will create lasting impression in the minds of my target audience.

Here’s the idea, the first impression of your customer/clients last long and become bold inasmuch there is qualitative services watering its appetite. Hence, customer service delivery should not be handled with levity. Oftentimes I patronize a service provider; I do check their response to customer care and relation. On many occasions I have scored many service providers low on guest management (customer services), many of them think they are doing their customer good not knowing that it is their customer that is doing them good by patronizing them. As an entrepreneur or service provider, it is your responsibility to learn skills on how to manage your clients/customers because deepest desire of every human is to be treated as a VIPs.

BUSINESS RENDERED ON THE PREMISE OF A CONDUCIVE CUSTOMER CARE AND RELATION SERVICES THRIVE AND CREATE LASTING IMPRESSIONS ON ITS CLIENTS. Further buttressing this reality, John Mason observed in one of his book that “we make a first-class mistake if we treat others as second class people.”

To truly balance brand/product reliability and validity, the service provider must maintain a high sense of integrity by being the best at adding value on whatever they do. This help to deliver services to their esteemed consumer/customer/client. One problem that may surface in bid of brand reliability and validity is overpromising your target audience and under-delivering services promised. A lesson for the wise entrepreneur “NEVER PROMISE WHAT YOU CAN’T DELIVER”. Before your brand gain acceptability it must have been test run till it get to the final stage where clients can now buy into the vision of the brand.

Another secret, “everything you do and say creates an image”. You can’t afford to present your brand/business less than the platform of PROFESSIONALISM! Just a little shift will help in adjusting to business etiquette. Innovation is the tool for change that alters unproductive routines, ethics and tradition stocked in your mindset. Don’t address your brand like a suspect if you want it to be address as prospect.

– Emmanuel ABIONA,

Brand-strategist consultant