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Hot Seat - Unique Selling Proposition

And what we're doing in the hot seat right now is we are going to be working through what a unique selling a unique sales proposition unique selling proposition is a so called usp, which is what we're taking to the outside world, where we say this is really where I am very different, so the first thing I want you to do is just tell me and tell the audience a little bit about what business we're talking about, what it is, and then we'll dive into it because the way I position our businesses that were solutions provider and well, I think we're different. And why nowhere effective is that we take into account the sort of global nature of a customer's problem, and we tracked it attack it from doing business analysis, you're standing where the money is what's the what's, the foundation of their business, we have a group that does human center design. So in terms of the human centered design, yeah, it's, it's, it's designing web sites and interactions based off of immediate feedback of the p...

rocess of building sites to be a lot, a lot of credit typing on a weird exactly works and then we're also very, very good in the field of technology, so we do a lot of work in mobile technology, you know, aps cell phone on ben connected thinking in the world of the connected internet so by having this three pillars we can analyze and provide solutions that are unique but specifically targeted towards the needs of a particular customers on a particular clients and user base but where were different is we take into account all three pillars ok, so let's backtrack a little bit so tell us about the creative company so what's the name and what is sort of what's the elevator pitch let's start there yes. Oh so citizen was a company that represents which I like is actually really great it's a great great night so part of the company we do sort of straightforward on what I call a creative agency work. Yes, I do a lot of video production to a lot of website design um do a lot of sizzle reals that's when this stuff another part of the company is more on the technology side building back and systems that support, you know the web sites and things serums thing like publishing platforms, custom and content management systems, those sorts of things and then that was previously that the other pillar of the business is really smart people that do on web analytics business strategy work trying to find out what is the landscape in which our clients are working so we can effectively developers solutions and attack their particular problems so do people come to you after they've already done a lot of trial and error flushed a lot of about their own money down the toilet? Not things happening? Or do people come to you to have you design a solution from the get go? So we talked about this earlier is this is this is the trouble with a business like this is that you can't put your solutions out there and say, this is what we did for this big company because this big company owns the technology they own solution, so we can't say, you know, driven by citizen and created by citizen because, you know, microsoft, at and t or some other companies sort of owns that technology, so what we have found is relatively effective is to talk about a process, but where the talking about your process starts to fall apart in my experience is that you can't show that tangible customer interaction piece of it because that's that's sort of that's the ah ha moment that makes things work. You know, we talked about earlier where we're both very process or into people, right and that's, where most of the hard work is done on the process side, but that's not the interesting work doesn't help you sell anything. Because what it is it's, that tangible small touch point with customer where things just work, they don't care why it works. It just happens to be a really easy moment for me. They don't want it, it doesn't matter to them. What exactly, do they just want to know what the end result is? So but back to my questions, I'm coming to you have I now spend a year and a lot of money already, and what I'm doing is not working because I've been trying to do it the traditional way I've hired my videographer, I've hired my web designer, they all don't talk to each other. I went tio a place like the land's got a google analytics person, so I have sort of all these people in different places they don't communicate or if they communicate, is not going that well, and I was a business owner have the feeling that is just not connecting in the middle or do I am, I start up and I have a whole bunch of funding, and I need somebody to do this funny. Yes, so the answer would be yes to both. And so whatever experience that so on the bigger side of things, that's usually when a company is gone through a number of acquisitions and where you're aggregating multiple different systems from multiple different companies and you're trying to integrate them into a consolidated user experience that's effective for delivering the value of that customer that company's products and services to a client base. So a lot of it's getting rid of garbage in the background and we engineering a new process that attacks their specific customers problems and a more effective way guy bridge in the background I like that garbage in the back I think it can jump from china garbage in the background I well, s o so let's talk about some of those pain points so the pain points pinpoints are that systems inevitably do not communicate the way they're supposed to they're wildly inefficient, wildly inefficient okay, so when something is wildly inefficient, what does that mean from my pocket book? Well, it means and we'll have a couple of things. It means increased cost, increased employee friction in terms of people working together this frustration that builds up which ultimately translates to time and translates to cost and it on the customer side it usually ends up as a separate whatever called by for kid accused the user experience there's not it's like sort of a common not only common interface but common methods of doing business with a company that's when the consumer goes, a customer goes it's not working again, right? Right or it's too confusing it's too confusing ok, so the pain points so there's two sets of pain points the pain points are number one it's a collaboration issue because the systems it's a technical issue it is a people issue especially acquisitions because different cultures come together different systems come together and I probably would describe it like that it's a interracial marriage right it's different cultures different places different people that have been lead differently they're coming together we've now all just listened to the to the wonderful speech of the ceo who has just told us that we're going to be one big happy family and how wonderful everything is going to be working together nobody's going to get laid off everybody's going to keep the job it's going to happen is we're just going to grow exponentially so much further that is until the end of the month and that's when the first conversations air starting off who we're going to let go because now we have too much much fat to trim and people are you know so this dualities and all kinds of things so companies are concerned about cost about time and about customers so I would in the any sales proposition these are the three things that need to be in there so in the why are you here question that's always remember the first question that we asked why here what made you come here? You want to say what is it costing you when your systems technology and people do not communicate, collaborate, interact whatever the specific words are that that industry uses so that's why you know that the verb itch the terminology is so crucial because if somebody says if they hear over and over and over again the exact phrase your websites not working then you need to put that in u u s p where you say how many times have you heard your web sites just not working and then you conclude and how much time and money is it going to cost you in frustration right? If the people in the company's in your specific business that you're going after say there is no communication from the top down there is no support support dig deeper is a technical support is it systems support is it or is it training is a lack of training or is it a technical issue where nobody has even ever thought about taking two systems that do the same thing when you bring them together it's like a magnet repelling each other causing unbelievable problems right? So what are the exact terms that are being used do you know? Yeah okay let's talk about that so um in terms like system integration system yes, exactly like the people systems and technology, right? So so we have we have a variety of different things that are going on so each of those blocks because each of those blog's adds to the problem that your unique solving proposition comes in, right? So when you heard the testimonial, you might remember on the social network state from you meet what we actually did is in the v I p d we set down, and we took the problems that her clients have. And so when she talks about what she does, she says we solve, and then she rattles down a list off the five biggest pain points that technology companies have. So you want to do the same thing? You want to know exactly the exempt word of what they're calling it, but it can't be geeky because I was nobody will understand it, right? Yes. So that's that will be the challenge to me. We're going to come a proxies for equal. Okay, good. So let's. See, what are the key words? So, you know, it's system integration is things like data integrity, the cleanliness of data. So what does it means if the data integrity is not intact? What does it mean for the end user? It usually translates to extra time on the end user because to get the data configured properly so you can put it from your client usually means that people need to get involved in scrubbing the data before it gets presented out to a customer. So give me a really life example analogy, could you could you use something that would be a real life analogy way. Thanks for that one. Can we paint a picture? Yeah, I mean, so pitchers could be so for certain processor internals accompanies certain processes are external within the internal process in the company's. So have a client that could be the financial department. I'm trying to run a report, you know, end of the month actuals against protected revenue coming in. If I've got two different financial systems and reporting is coming in sometimes the date at which one calculates that revenue has been registered as cash could be different in two systems. So if you want a career in asu systems a level the information the report will say able this system says we got this much money in this system, you know, that there's a discrepancy there that's a very big problem. So somebody has to go through and reconcile all of that and go through it's ok, we'll need to adjust in dayton the way the date at which the revenue coming in could be considered cash and us that's huge that's a huge problem. And so that would be comparable to, um you wanting to pay your mortgage, but not knowing what's in your bank account it's good analogy you don't know where you are yeah you don't know where they are you don't know if you pay the mortgage and the check is bouncing or if it's going to be I hope is gonna work yeah it's kind of like you know used used first got google maps and you're looking through you could say well, I'm kind of in this neighborhood but I couldn't use it to navigate I couldn't figure out how to get to you know a particular business because the information was more general and variables bigger right? It's not it's not as precise and that's how a lot of the data issues I would count the minutes is that there's there's ambiguity about how accurate is ok it's ah directionally correct is supposed to be specific ok so one of the biggest pain points then would be to say that ms firing off your technology can create inaccurate financial picture of your company the financial picture of your company only rules absolutely everything can you make payroll? What can you invest in? What are you influencing your outflows if you don't is this is the number one rule of every business ever written I mean it's not only is the number one rule what's the number you are at right now if your business cannot with one hundred percent certainty guarantee to the ceo or the c f or your shareholders or your investors where you are at any given day of the month, what you're accurate financial picture is your company is not believable and possibly in huge trouble, because that neither the irs nor the consumer northern people that are employed there tolerate I mean, that is the number one, the number one sin in business to not know where you where your business stands financially. So that's, what I would drive home right is where I would probably go in the pain point of saying, are you wondering if your numbers are accurate? Do you know where you are? Can you guarantee after a merger, especially after merger and acquisition, or the marriage of several different systems that your your finances, your inventory, you're shipping, you know, and that's like that that's, the core of every business? What are we selling? What do we have? What are we making that you can? You can guarantee the reporting on this, and then you go and say most businesses that have gone through whatever the thing is that they've gone through are facing the unhappy marriage with step children that are very problematic or teenagers that don't want took elaborate quite yet, our unique sales proposition is we come in superman, hero outfit and all, and we're sending our aven jurors into your systems where the people are what was the third one and two where your customer hangs out at the technology interface with their customers? So it's the product business process it's your people, which sort of translates in my head into what I call change management, which is always the hardest. One of so is the thing people seem to leave out of the equation. Are you going to restructure the business, the processes and say, I've got this great process get about the people like, I don't think he's that stupid or, you know, why should I follow you? And so we found that it actually works best is to go in and work with a company and have them help develop the solution. So then they're more attached to the new process when it kind of the other end, but you're right. That's, that's, that's a huge point of friction. So what I would do from the unique sales proposition because you don't want what you do be conflicting, right or being confusing, so you need to create the umbrella, right? So the umbrella is, is that a business consists out it like the pillars a business consists out of these three pillars. This is when there's friction points when there's problems when money's and flowing, when consumers are unhappy, it's because technology is not working, consumers have a terrible experience and what's inside the company between the peoples of disaster because they, you know, they get so frustrated because this isn't working. This isn't working. So instead of throwing three different solutions at three different problems or pretending, like he's, a different problems which they really are, not to us that's why we call it citizen because it's from the people for the people. So we make sure that the systems are supporting the people better working the systems, and we make sure that the systems of supporting the consumer so that we have that, that we all together in this and we building systems, not for system sake, but we build systems and we evaluate systems in your company based upon whether or not the support or hurt emission, I like it because it drives it to a more sort of humanistic what we're talking about, the feeling part of it, which is more more point, is very different when you take a visit, right? But you know what we and this is, you know, sort of one of the things I really encourage you to do. Is the things that we talk about in here if there's something that you want to use for bait him by all means do that if it applies to you mean, we are in these fact finding in these discovery portions ofthe in the work shopping part of this course for the very reason to identify certain languages that we can use I mean don't take darrell from a chicken that's the only thing I'm gonna ask for all right that's a no no, but if we say you know this this this portion ofthe let's make it about the people because we said it's such a trend and if you are this in this creative business and this trend setting company I would lead into that and I would say have you ever noticed that gate looks like us process oriented people like us or that the process oriented people think it's all about the numbers and the processes but hey, stop half you bin wondering why in this millennial studly studied that you know you have access to it because if you know you having the workbook and what you'll read in there is that people are worried that corporations are only about processes that it's impersonal, they don't care about the people that don't care about the planet, so if your business continues to do that, you don't have any problems you because you're going to be out of business it's true it is true so we're coming in and we design this creative company called citizen with that in mind that we don't just want to come in with our screwdrivers and fix in our programmers and add geek to gate one it's called citizen because it's about the people okay, so what is a unique sales proposition hold on and be a justice spot like justice? So our unique sales proposition c this is where I turn my head around exactly I'm an engineer. Yes, of course. So what I would say is that citizen, you know, our comprehensive understanding of the business environment allows us to come in and create solutions. What I said before, um, that help you connect with your customer and, you know, meaningful ways but also creates a work environment where people thrive, where the systems support people with systems, support the people. I like that I like that attachment because in technology I e I think it's going to be a really a benefit for your company tow ad that human touch to technology and to say we have a bit, you know, we don't we don't talk about what our technology does because that technology does what all technology does, but what our emphasis is with our technology, we make sure the technology supports people I like that sounds like a sort of plug proletariat because we want to avoid you know again that you go in the secret sauce and say while we do this by optimizing this an hour analytics specialist teams coming that's great for you, but what I need to know is I just merged with another company my hr department is inundated with complaints uh my technology might my cto is about to quit because the stuff that they said their systems were going to do are are not happening and our system's overloaded and my sales people are in arms because all their commissions are threatened because they're not meeting goals because the back end you know, the consumer facing back and is not working the sales you know, the sales that delivers air screwed up, you know, false reports of beings and I don't even know where to start. I need superman to come in I need the citizen brigade to show up I like that citizen's brigade so you know, imagine we're deploying this isn't brigade throughout all your systems and our people talk and our people get your people to talk because that's what I want I'm like you gonna talk to the cto you're going to talk to age are you goingto you're going to talk to salespeople, you're going to figure out what they need and you're gonna make it all work together sort of in the call center yeah that's, powerful house. A few feels good. It makes sense. Okay, so you can work with that I could work with thank you. That was a thief.