10 Jun 09 Create Value First

I often see a lot of businesses or business people bent on working out how to make money.

How can we monetise this?

How can we monetise that?

How can we get the most money out of this client for the service and still keep them as a client?

How can we increase the share of wallet?

While in some circumstances, these questions aren’t always silly questions, but I hear them far too often that I feel it is indicative of a different mindset, one that is actually not conducive to making more money in the long term. The questions that should be the core focus for any entreprenuer is;

“How can I create more value?”

Once this is solved the rest will follow, clients will stay with you, they will do what they can to buy more value creating services off you, and users will continue to use your service. If you have a service that is creating a lot of value for a lot of people – somebody with some imagination can work out a way to monetise it, in a way that is directly correlated to the value that it is creating. At the end of the day, all people want is value for their money.

This is why auctions work, and why middlemen are slowly getting squeezed.