When it comes to increasing profits, there are three predominant schools of thought: raise prices, reduce costs, or some variation of the two.
As we enter a new year, how about a fourth option? Why not focus with laser-like intensity on providing what your customers value?
Here are 10 ideas on how to make 2015 your most profitable year, built solely on capitalizing on what your customers value:
1. What do your customers value? Let’s start with something simple, like understanding what keeps your customers coming back. Is it your personality, location, pricing, unique service offering, or convenient hours? Take a survey of your top customers and ask them why they keep returning to your business time and again.
2. What do your competitors offer that you don’t? For those customers who frequent your competitor’s business, or split their investing between your business and another, what are you not offering that your competitors are? You can easily find this information by shopping your competitors business, and if you are daring enough, ask unsuspecting patrons why they keep coming back to your competitor’s business.
3. Strategically populate your gaps. You can’t be everything to everybody, nor should you attempt to be. However, with the intelligence obtained from steps one and two above, where and how should you invest your time to increase value? This could range from re-deploying how employees greet and interact with customers to developing new services that further enhance existing product offerings. If it’s a gap that will provide additional value to customers or clients, then it’s a gap you must populate.
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