Executive Podcast #345: Are You Delivering Appreciated Value?

Perry Holley:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell Leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:
And I’m Chris Goede, executive vice president with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. Today we talk a lot about, man, are we adding value to people? And today we’re going to talk about this a little bit differently. We’re going to talk about, are you delivering appreciated value?

Perry Holley:
Term for you, appreciated value.

Chris Goede:
This rocked my world. Again. This is something I’m fascinated by the concept. Perry and I happen to have the privilege of learning, and we are taking what we’re learning and not only applying it to what we do on our daily leadership, but also we want to share with you. And so before we dive into the content, I want to, of course, ask you to visit MaxwellLeadership.com/Podcast. There you can download the learner guide. You can fill out a form if you click on this podcast, and you can leave us a comment or a question for an upcoming session that we will unpack for you from the field. And that’s what I love about what we do is, I mean, this is just.

Chris Goede:
This is raw stuff, whether it’s topics that we’re working with companies with or topics that we’re learning. And so we’re going to dive into this. As I mentioned previously, we’ve had the opportunity to be a part of a small group of leadership and just learn. And we were fascinated by a lot of the concepts. This is one that we just wanted to share with you because so many people say, hey, and I know we do. This is why I was struck by it. Oh, we want to add value to people, right? Well, that’s great. Oh, that’s awesome.

Chris Goede:
That’s awesome. I value. And then they said this, and I’m like, oh, oh, yeah, we need to. We need to up our game. And so that value is not enough. We actually must deliver appreciated value. And so, man, let’s just dive into this and start unpacking.

Perry Holley:
Well, we know that creating value, essential to establishing your brand, it’s. It’s essential to everything you do. You’ve got to add value. But the lesson I think that we picked up in this opportunity we had to sit at the feet of some experts was, are you taking the time to interpret the value for your customers? Do you interpret it for your prospects? Do you interpret it for your investors? To every stakeholder that’s connected with your enterprise. And I was thinking about us and you know, have we considered value associated with the business then and the people that we deal with and the customers that we’re trying to serve make the impact we’re trying to make? Have we, have we thought about appreciated value?

Chris Goede:
I, I would say that we have thought about value from a similar perspective, but after digging into this a little bit further, I would say that we did it on the surface level and we made some assumptions and that necessarily is not what we’re going to be doing going forward. Because I think this is a very pivotal, I think a differentiator for you and your business, whatever it might be, and your customers, the relationship. And so oftentimes we say, oh well, we’re in the leadership space. I’m going to give you a personal example. And we know that this would value the X, Y and Z organization. We know it’s going to add value to them and then we continue to tell them why it’s going to add value to them and the difference it’s going to make. And, and the point here is that appreciated value is from the customer’s perspective. Right.

Chris Goede:
It’s their point of view, not our point of view of whether or not it values them. Like is it something they appreciate because of the value that you’re adding to them? It’s not what we think it is, it’s what our customer feels it is. And I’m not an over feeling kind of guy, so I use that word lightly, but that’s what it is. Like do they feel the value? I mean, do they appreciate it? Like is it something that it just feels so tied into who they are and what they do that it again, it’s a distinctive between you and maybe some of your other competitors.

Perry Holley:
And I’m just thinking we had a couple when last week, maybe two weeks ago. We talk about different versus distinctive.

Chris Goede:
Yes.

Perry Holley:
And that. So it’s your value to your customer about not just being different from others, but distinctive. But now I’m thinking I didn’t put that in the notes here, but I’m thinking distinctive in our customers eyes, what makes us distinctive to them. But let’s do a little example. Maybe we could work through that. But I, and I used, a couple of weeks ago I used the idea of you own a real estate business. So what is value? If you just value.

Chris Goede:
Just straight up value.

Perry Holley:
Straight up value if you’re a real estate company.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, listen, we’re helping clients find a home to buy. Right. Like we’re in the business of finding you a home.

Perry Holley:
And so if we want to take it to the next level and be through our distinctiveness to appreciated value. And I’m. What is the value that the customer, the buyer or client, what do they appreciate?

Chris Goede:
Right.

Perry Holley:
What should they appreciate? We’re helping them. Tell them what this is. We’re interpreting the value. So now take it to the next level.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. So this would be. Okay. So let’s now find them and just set of selling them a home. Let’s find them a home that exceeds their requirements. Maybe even what they communicated to you on the front end. And then on top of that, maybe even some. Some bonuses.

Chris Goede:
Right. Like, maybe it even puts them in a position to where the. The community needs exceeded what they thought. Maybe they didn’t even ask for them. But you’re positioning this to it a certain way. Maybe it’s service needs, maybe it’s the financial side of things. It is above and beyond us just saying, hey, Perry and Bonnie, here’s a home for you to buy. And.

Chris Goede:
But it. It becomes a little bit different, and it creates the, you know, the wow of why they’re doing business with you.

Perry Holley:
Yeah. So, you know, finding a quality home definitely is a value from me, from the realtor’s point of view, from the company’s point of view. But when I look at it from the buyer’s point of view, they have a lot bigger need than just a house.

Chris Goede:
Yes.

Perry Holley:
And although that’s a great value, and if you actually find them a great house in a great neighborhood, that is a great value. But the appreciated value goes much higher. I need more than a house. I need the financing solution. I need to know about the community. I need to assimilate into the community. I need to get moved. And there’s all kinds of other things you can look at from the buyer’s point of view.

Chris Goede:
And you make the transaction and you say, oh, man, they really thought about me. Like, they really thought about Bonnie and I and the season of life that we’re in and the things that would make it personable and a memorable experience for you. Now, I’m gonna give you this example because it’s. My wife and I just recently purchased a home, and this was a very personable and memorable experience for my wife because she enjoys this kind of stuff. But after we closed on the home, we got an invitation or letter from the team that we used to buy our home and said, hey, super excited. Your new home. One of the things we’d like to do is we would like to throw you a housewarming party. Now, my wife is extremely social, and hospitality is her thing.

Chris Goede:
She’s always the one that’s preparing the food and doing the invites and all that stuff. Right. Not me, but her. And they said in this letter, they said, we’re so grateful that we’re able to do this. We would like to help you show off them. And so we will send out the invitations. Send us the list. We’ll send the invitation.

Chris Goede:
We will send everybody over.

Perry Holley:
Great example.

Chris Goede:
We will do a charcuterie board. I don’t even know what that is. I just. Now, somebody just asked me the other day, how did you even know how to say that? And. And that meant so much to my wife. It made it extremely memorable and personal. Now, she loves food, she loves hospitality. So that was speaking her language.

Chris Goede:
I don’t know if that’s what they do for every other client.

Perry Holley:
Maybe not, or it was unique to.

Chris Goede:
You, but it was. Yeah, but that real estate company knows my wife very well. Yeah. And so even if it wasn’t, maybe they have a. Maybe they have a suite of things they do, depending on what they learn about the client during the time. And so then we moved in, and a couple months later, where it worked for us on a Saturday. It was amazing. They took all the invitations out.

Chris Goede:
They sent a whole crew over, set up our whole kitchen. They left. All of our guests came for a couple hours, and we got to connect a lot of people. And then they came back, tore everything down. It was like nothing happened. So that is an example. As you were just talking about this, I just thought about. This is an example of saying, man, that.

Chris Goede:
That we appreciated the value of that experience. That, you know what, the next time that we get into a situation where we are going to have to buy a home, like, oh, dude, that is who we’re calling. That is absolutely who we’re calling.

Perry Holley:
And I’m guessing getting a quality home was good value.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
But this little extra that was uniquely distinctive to you is appreciated value. That they thought how to. How to actually interpret value to you.

Chris Goede:
That’s right.

Perry Holley:
Specifically in a very distinct, distinctive way.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
I’ve gotten a gift basket before, but never.

Chris Goede:
I have, too. Right. Like. Yeah. This makes me also think of John. You know, I don’t know if this is his original quote or we’ve heard him say it for years. Where people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Appreciated value.

Chris Goede:
In this situation right here, appreciated value is the evidence that they cared the Evidence showed up right on the backside that they cared about My wife’s. Her. What she loves. Right. The hospitality, the experience, the having the friends over and all that kind of stuff. And so the appreciative value is the evidence that people care. And like John says, if you go back and say people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care, that’s just another example of how to tie that together to a leadership.

Perry Holley:
And I’d love to know, were they just listening and they had the certain things they picked up on and they go, you know what would be cool here would be housewarming. Could you imagine versus what they gave me a new car. But I know you got. I’m kidding.

Chris Goede:
No, no.

Perry Holley:
That’s hilarious.

Chris Goede:
Hey, we missed out on a car because you like charcuterie boards.

Perry Holley:
I hope you enjoyed your good. Whatever. Whatever that is.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

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Perry Holley:
All right, let’s consider some questions we need to ask ourselves if we are to ensure that we’re delivering appreciated value. As Heidi said, question one was, does the value we provide align with the true needs of the customer? This is really about getting out of our head and into the head of the people. And your example, we could just keep going on that one about, did they get into your head? Do they get into what? Your space. About where Sarah is and what she found valuable in this situation. But this, you know, how do we align with the true needs of our customer?

Chris Goede:
Yeah. And every buyer. Okay. Of your service, of your product. Maybe it’s even an internal team. There’s lots of teams that work internally for other teams. They’re your buyer. Right.

Chris Goede:
And so you can look at this a ton of different ways, but everybody has a different set of needs, and we see this all the time. We have the privilege of being in all kinds of different industries. And it’s tempting for us to force fit what we do right into what we think the client needs. And. And. But we got to make sure that we stay away from that so that we are delivering this appreciated value. And. And so I like what you’re talking about is, like, this question of maybe we even ask them, or we’re observing, hey, man, what would make this easier for you? What would make that.

Chris Goede:
I know, for example, bought a car recently, and they said, would you like us to deliver it to you? And I was like, oh, my gosh. Yeah. I travel all the time. We travel all the time. And I have to worry about, like, that. Like, thinking through that allows me to appreciate the value of that partnership of me buying a vehicle. I’m still concerned on how you got a vehicle for buying a house. I’m gonna.

Chris Goede:
I know you are, Kitty, but I’m gonna figure that out because I know who your agent wants to figure out.

Perry Holley:
How you’re buying houses and cars.

Chris Goede:
We’re just doing a podcast. How’s this working out? So even down to. And this is something we talk about here, is even down to where you are taking them through the process. Whatever your process is based off the personality of the decision maker or the person you’re talking to in sales, I often will relay this to someone who is. If you follow personality assessment, someone that’s a D on the disc. You know, very direct. Let’s go. Let’s give me.

Chris Goede:
It’s not the best thing to do if that’s your person on the other side of this process to where you’re going to ask them about the weather and you’re going to start engaging and talk about family like they want to know, hey, what are the options? What are. What are the options? My options. What’s the price? Good. That’s all I need. Like, that’s value. That’s appreciated value to them. And so you got to be aware of all of those things in this process.

Perry Holley:
The second question I put it was a question that I said, who else cares? But it’s my way. I remind myself to consider other stakeholders, and it’s a great question to consider about who else is affected by the value or who else could be. Now, you said back to your example. Value in getting a quality house in a quality neighborhood that met your needs, that your family needs. But who are the stakeholders? Well, Sarah’s a stakeholder. Your kids coming in and out could be a stakeholder. You’re a stakeholder. The neighbors could be stakeholders.

Perry Holley:
How can we Add value to extend to appreciated value that reaches to others beyond just the obvious.

Chris Goede:
Can I go back in that example that we gave about the Charcuterie board? Yeah. Okay. I was no shareholder stakeholder in that decision. I don’t even know what that was. Right. So they’re like, well, we’re not gonna ask or think that Chris would like something about this. But to your point, we absolutely that as organizations, we need to make sure that we’re understanding different perspectives for those that are involved in whatever that is. And to your point, who are the other stakeholders? Shareholders, whoever is going to be involved.

Chris Goede:
And we need to make sure that we understand their point of view. Because isn’t it true that whatever the application of your service or product is, those that are closest to using it every single day may not be the decision maker of who’s buying it?

Perry Holley:
Right.

Chris Goede:
But they should be. Their point of view should be taken into consideration because at the end of the day, they’re the one that’s using your product, they’re the one that’s using their application. And so to your. I love this. Right? It’s like, hey, just make sure that you’re, you’re working to get multiple different perspectives and as close to the application of what your product is in order to make sure what you are delivering has appreciated value.

Perry Holley:
When I think about who, you know, we sell, maybe we might be interfacing with an HR leader or the L and D leader, learning and development leader, but who else cares? I mean, what would the executive team think? What is the first line management? Who are we addressing? So this idea of appreciated value, does it change the way the sales team.

Chris Goede:
100, 100% and we’ve got to be thinking about this a little bit differently after this thing that we’ve learned from and we’ve kind of been challenged by. And so we need to consider, you know, who we’re speaking with. We got to understand what’s important to them. And it’s different, right. When you’re working with a potential customer and you need to maybe explain value in a different pace or a different way than a customer or a partner of yours that you have, where then you got to talk about, hey, what’s this going to look like if we do this a little bit differently? How would this impact the organization? You can take a, I think a broader view, a broader impact of the value versus in prospects. You might have to go about it a little bit differently. Maybe short term versus long term is way that you could look at it. But I absolutely think if you begin thinking about this a little bit differently, I think what you’ll end up doing is tailoring the services that you provide, how you go about providing them, how you go about selling them based off of who’s on the other side and not just trying to kind of form fit them into.

Chris Goede:
Back to your question you asked earlier. And, and it’s like a question we ask all the time is, well, does this leader like to learn? You know, with in person training is virtual. Okay, maybe is it on demand? Do they need Perry to come in and coach? Does the coaching need to be face to face? Can they do it zoom? Like in person? Can they do zoom? Does it need to be on the phone, like, where we can meet them? Whatever point that is will drive the most appreciated value. So as we wrap up, listen, I hope you heard in our voices just kind of like, man, like, this is a different way to think about what we believe is one of our core values is we want to add value to people. And it has kind of just rocked us a little bit to think about this. Completely different. And so if this is new to you, it’s okay. But it’s not going to be okay after today because Perry and I are going to send you a quiz and we’re going to be like, hey, like, you got to always be growing, you got to always be changing.

Chris Goede:
And I want you to think about this a little bit differently. Delivering value to me now is just the baseline. That’s where it starts.

Perry Holley:
Minimum required.

Chris Goede:
That’s the now that’s. And so do we want to be a minimum required company? No, we don’t want to. We want to exceed expectations. And so from there we got to figure out what creates loyalty, what creates referrals, what creates emotional connection. Because at the end of the day, if we can exceed the client, the partner’s expectation, and we can make it personally relevant to them, then I think we’ve done the appreciated value. So back to our example about real estate. They exceeded our expectations on the house they brought to us. And then the personal relevance was obviously through the things that my wife wanted in a house.

Chris Goede:
But then the post where they know she loves hospitality, she knows she wants to meet people in the neighborhood. They sent out invitations, they sent out to our family, and then there was a chicory board. So think about that, right? It’s how do we exceed expectations and how do we make it be personally relevant to the team? Then I think it becomes appreciated value.

Perry Holley:
Being distinctive, not just different.

Chris Goede:
Love that.

Perry Holley:
Yes, very good. Well, thank you and reminder. You can get the Learner Guide as well as learn more about our offerings or other podcast offerings. You can do all that at MaxwellLeadership.com/Podcast. You can also leave us a comment or a question. We love hearing from you. Very grateful you spend this time with us today. That’s all from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.

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