As business moves on line, less and less of what is offered is “one size fits all.” Customers like you and me have developed a taste for what helps us express our individuality. The more a business or a blog seems to “look and feel” like me, the more likely I am to stick around and explore.

What does that mean to an online business now?

Build a Promise on Values

We are a fascinating species. When we don’t know where to go, we’ll go where everyone else goes. But give me a valuable reason to come to you, and you’ve made a customer –- a reader -– possibly a friend forever.

It’s likely that our customers will look a lot like ourselves. People gravitate to people who think as they do. In fact, we think people who think as we do are smart, and those who don’t are difficult uninformed or unable to “keep up.” Naturally our best customers will share our values too.

What we value is what we’ll fight for, what we’ll put our head, heart, and time on the line for.

Build a promise core on values to attract customers who love your business as much as you do.

• Define one or two core values for your business. Call them your value service niche. Make it your place to stand. Saving time with a smile could be one. Worrying your work into art could work. Play to your strengths and passions. Do what you value better than anyone else.
• Find out everything about the customers who value that too. Fall in love with every one of them. Figure out how to crawl into their skin and see what they think, feel, and experience. Know their dreams and their wishes. Find their needs and desires. Learn to predict what they’re not saying.
• Define your your work through your customers’ world view. Design everything they see to look like them. Choose your words to sounds like they do. State what you stand for in promise of a few words.
• Write that promise everywhere your customers look.
• Deliver on it every time they meet you.
• Use that promise to test every decision, every product and service your business offers.

Core values define what you and your customers put above everything else. When they’re aligned and out loud, they are our voice and an irresistibly attractive message.

What core values do you share with your most loyal customers?

You’re only a stranger once.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!