Michael Gerber's Franchise Prototype Model Rule to Win #1: Add Consistent Value

Gerber, p. 99, says:

1. The model will provide consistent value to your customers, employees, suppliers, and lenders, beyond what the expect.

I see at least two implications of this. First, with regard to customers, it's not clear what a customer is anymore. In the bad old days, you developed a product, pushed it out there, and people bought it (or not). Marketing was price, product, promotion, and the other "P" I can't remember right now.

Your business is really part of an extended enterprise which includes those other people and organizations Gerber includes in his list above. And one way you add value to your product is to include all these customers in the design of your product. Working together you develop "applications" which have added value and you can then charge for.

These days, people are only interested in paying for value. So you have to add value to your product if you're going to get people to pay for it. The process of getting paid for added value we call "monetizing," as in "Sounds like a great idea, but how are you going to monetize it?" This is particularly a problem with new, web-based businesses. You see all these businesses going under? I suspect a lot of them don't have a clue about this.

Second, you have to pay attention to the other people in your extended enterprise. Businesses aren't hierarchical, command-and-control type organizations. Well, many still are and many are in trouble. They're flatter, more interconnected, with more surface area. You have to add value for all of those folks if you're business is going to be all that it can be.

When Gerber wrote this, he didn't have on his radar screen all the social media and Internet tools we have today. But his words still ring as true as ever. That's because business hasn't really changed at all. Adding value to relationships is there today just as it was when LL Bean founded his company almost 100 years ago.

What do you think of this? I'd like to know. Post comment

Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com