(Time to read this Blog article is about 60 seconds)
Many businesses, large and small, make the mistake of believing that their customers have only one ‘currency’ in their lives, which is money. So they can think of only one way to compete, which is to cut their price. ‘Price’ is important but when you realize that most people actually have four ‘currencies’ in their lives, there are hundreds of ways to compete that aren’t cutting your price.
What exactly is a ‘currency’ A ‘currency’ is anything of value to your customers that they don’t have enough of. And on this planet, in our society, at this time, there are four things that we don’t have enough of…four ‘currencies’. They are…
- Money,
- Time,
- Feeling Safe (physically & emotionally safe)…and,
- Feeling Special.
Your customers are prepared to spend more money to save time, or to feel more safe, or more special. People are even prepared to take time and to spend a lot of money to not feel safe, in order to feel special…which is the only explanation I have for bungee jumping!
For example, a $20,000 car will pretty much get us everywhere we want to go, on time and comfortably. But, perhaps it doesn’t make us feel safe enough, or special enough.
If we have an alarm system in our home, we’ve spent a lot of money to feel more safe. If we have beautiful crown moldings in our living room, we’ve spent a lot of money for what? Crown moldings don’t save us time and they offer no increased safety (they don’t actually hold the ceiling up)…but they do look beautiful and make us feel special!
When we’re choosing an investment advisor, travel agent or mechanic for our car we’re looking for someone who will deliver all four ‘currencies’. Someone who will make or save us money, who will save us time and make us feel both safe and special.
Consider the relative importance of each of the ‘4 Currencies’ when we choose a life mate.
Think about the car you drive, where you live, all of your possessions and the relationships that you’ve entered into in both your business and your personal life and identify exactly what mix of Money, Time, Feeling Safe and Feeling Special influenced your decisions. Then, think about how you can use these ‘4 Currencies’ to build compelling value-added relationships with your target customers. How can you save them money, save them time, and make them feel more safe and more special?
