Would people miss you if you were gone?  This is the big value question. Businesses talk about value all of the time yet they typically equate it with price.  However, value is not about price, it’s about getting what you pay for, it’s about being valuable for something, and valuable enough that people will pay what you are asking.

If you want to be the value leader, you have to think about what you do that is remarkable, irreplaceable, something people would miss if it were gone. What does your business do that is valuable? What do you do that people can’t live without? What is it that makes what you do something people can’t get elsewhere?

And your answer better not be product, because products are only valuable until copycats or the next great thing comes along.  A better answer would be to look at service as the value creator.

Think about Apple. They came up with the iPhone and it quickly became the phone people couldn’t live without, but now look, there are all kinds of copycats. So what does Apple need to do to become valuable, they need to offer service that no one else can touch.

• They need to make buying an iPhone an enjoyable experience.
• They need to make getting repairs so easy that a 6 year old can manage the process.
• They need to make buying, owning and maintaining the iPhone so easy and enjoyable that Samsung and their other competitors can’t begin to copy it.

Simply put, Apple needs to become more valuable, something people can’t live without…and that doesn’t come with the product, it comes with the service experience.

Question: would customers miss you if you were gone? What do you do that people can’t live without? Why are you valuable?