How do you create value for team members and customers?
In my recently released book titled Stronger Through Adversity, I wrote that “at its core, business is simple. Success involves six components of value creation and exchange:
1. Explore value: Understand the wants and needs of your consumers.
2. Create value: Craft solutions to address your consumers’ needs.
3. Market value: Communicate the benefits of your solutions to your consumers.
4. Sell value: Help consumers find sufficient value in your offering so that they will provide something of value to you in return (namely, make a purchase).
5. Deliver value: Ensure your consumers receive the value you promised.
6. Prosper through value efficiency: Deliver value economically so you can sustain and grow your ability to provide it.”
In Stronger Through Adversity, Amir Dan Rubin, Chair and CEO of One Medical, discussed how he adjusted value drivers in response to the pandemic, noting “We continued to focus on delivering the highest quality care, providing accessibility, and delivering service affordably. Being based in San Francisco and having a robust technology team, we sped up our cycle times on human-centered design and technologies that make the lives of our providers, members, and company clients easier. We also moved heavily toward our existing and highly popular virtual care platform.” Virtual services were of increased importance to provide 24/7 patient access when face-to-face care became limited.
Concerning new or redesigned value delivery, Amir shared, “We ran toward needs that our members and employers expressed and that we were well-suited to fill through our human-centered and technology-powered model. For example, we launched online COVID -19 screenings, virtual assessments, and testing services in all our markets. We also looked to serve our broader communities by offering our digital health membership and testing services for free to the public for the summer, in partnership with the mayors of New York City and San Francisco. We quickly rolled out these COVID-19 services to all our markets with software modifications, numerous drive-through testing locations, home-based testing solutions, and in-person treatment services.
We had our providers in full PPE volunteer in hospitals and emergency departments in New York City, as the call for help was put out. We also rolled up our sleeves and created value for many of our major employers by developing worksite reentry programs, with daily screenings of employees integrated into our technology, arrangement of testing, and seamless follow-up from our virtual providers on any employee medical needs. We felt energized by playing a role in serving key employers such as Airbnb, NASDAQ, Google, and Instacart. Also, during this time, we extended our virtual behavioral and pediatric services to better address the well-being needs of our members and their families.”
From Amir’s perspective, value delivery involved discerning when to amplify current offerings and then when to launch your competencies in the direction of emerging needs. Value creation and delivery also involved the awareness that sometimes you have to fill a need first and discuss payment later.
Inspired by Amir’s insights here are this week’s challenge questions:
- Are you consistently delivering the value you promise when you sell your products or services?
- How are you deciding when to amplify the value of your current offerings versus launching new products or services to meet the emerging needs of your customers?
- Are you willing to deliver value first and trust that your value delivery will result in success and sustainability? Or do you only produce value after you are paid to do so?
