Tag Archives | worth
September 13, 2011

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What's It Worth?

What Does Value Proposition Mean?

The motivation behind this section of my blog is to help people, in my own little way, with their careers and businesses by sharing the little that I know and the simple lessons I have learned from my humble experiences as a young businessman.

I don’t write this from the perspective of a financially successful person, I don’t have millions to show. Neither do I write this from the position of a knowledgeable academic, I have one degree and I can’t even remember most of the names of my teachers and classmates. I write this as a small businessman who fights the same battles many other ordinary people face daily. I know what it means to have almost no money for payroll. I know what it means to take no salary for what seems like forever. I know what it means to read finance and leadership books and realize you’re the total opposite of who you should be. And I share your hopes that someday our initiatives will breakthrough as we pray, believe, persevere, learn, and grow.

In the meantime, I pray, believe, persevere, learn, and grow – and share.

Someday, I’ll be dying, and ultimately dead, but on my death bed, I want to be able to look back, not at a perfect life, it’s way way way too late for that now, but at a life that valued my Father (that’s worship by the way: worth (value) – ship) and brought real value to the lives of others by helping them meet their legitimate needs and desires legitimately. (This is very different from being a needy leech or meeting people’s illegitimate wants.)

This purpose of meeting needs and fulfilling desires is at the core of the Value Proposition concept. A Value Proposition is simply a product or service you or your organization offers that meets the needs and/or desires of  your target customer in a way that allows them to appreciate its worth.

Let’s break this definition down to fully grasp it. If you’d like actual examples from my companies just email me at davidmichaelbonifacio@gmail.com

A Product or a Service Offered
There has to be something that you or your organization brings to the table for an exchange to happen. Business, and really most if not all of life, is about exchanging value. So before there can be an exchange, there has to be things to exchange which are either products or services. For example, a worker exchanges the service of his labor for a financial product: money, which he can then exchange for another company’s product or service, or even the product or service of another person such as a baby-sitter. Even non-profits work this way, even if many times we don’t realize this. We donate or support a foundation by giving our time (service) or money (product) for either the fulfillment of a cause we believe in or to help us meet a social need (both are services).

That Meets a Need and/or Desire
Many times, especially with small businesspeople, we fall into the opportunity trap. We see a product, discover its financial potential, and allow this financial potential to be the paradigm of our endeavor. But everything looks good on paper and even the simplest plan is immensely much more difficult in execution. With the number of products and services out there, and the limited spending power of people, businesses more than ever have to really be honest with their offerings and go back to the basic question: What need or desire are we meeting? Are we even meeting a need or desire? Answering the need or desire question regularly and honestly helps put us on track to refining our Value Proposition.

Of a Target Customer
You can’t please everyone. You can’t even please your spouse or partner or kids or friends or whoever all the time, and they’re supposed to be on your side already. What more the full range of customers available? Instead, focus your offering on a target. What’s the right target? It’s different per case. Sometimes we find them accidentally. But here are some guide questions?

- Who needs my product or service most?
- Who wants my product or service most?
- Who can I serve the best?
- Who can pay for my product or service?
- Who is willing to pay for my product or service?
- Who do I want to offer my product or service to?
- Who can I realistically deliver my product or service to well?

Start with these questions and refine your customer segments as you go along.

In a Way that Allows Them to Appreciate Its Worth
This is critical, because this is where we think about our edge, our competitive advantage, our differentiator. You may think that your product or service is a winner but if people don’t buy then it just means they don’t appreciate the value you’re offering. And that could mean a lot of different weaknesses such as price, product, packaging, promotions, place, or even economic conditions or timing. So you have to look into all of these things. I enjoy sitting with people and working this part out with them because it’s a lot of fun and it’s nice to see people use their brain. I’m always amazed at just how creative and smart people can get when someone pushes them harder than they’re used to.

Place a lot of energy and effort into this part of your value proposition. Look around you and at the products and services you consume. What makes Evian different from Absolut? Why do they both sell? Who do they sell to? What about Coffee Bean and Starbucks? Aren’t they both coffee? How can their be so many soap brands? What will make me stand out in my office if everyone here says that they’re proficient with MS Office on their resume? You have to figure this out, and you have to be able to present it in a way people can appreciate. If not? They won’t buy.

Now some of you are probably already doing many of these things, some of you are probably doing them intuitively. The bottom lime is offer something of value.

If you’d like to know more about Value Propositions and my Business Dashboard class please email Jenny Yrasuegui at jenyrasuegui@gmail.com.

August 5, 2011

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What's It Worth?

The Passionate Lover

I wasn’t planning to write today. I’ve been so busy working I haven’t really had time to think through a post. But sometimes I read something that just triggers my thinking. I just read a post entitled Kawawa Naman si God which translates to “Poor God” or “Pitiful God”, and the author went on to describe the different things that God has done to reach out to us because our sins take us so far away, culminating in the ultimate sacrificial act of His dying on the cross. The whole point of the article is that God’s love is so amazing – which I completely agree with.

I am amazed by God’s love too. He has really shown me much much more than I deserve. But here’s where I don’t agree: I don’t believe God is KAWAWA (which again translates to “pitiful” or ” “poor”). In fact, the Bible says in Hebrews 12:2, that He endured the cross and scorned its shame “for the JOY set before him.”

To Jesus, we were, we are, His JOY, and that’s why He died for us and that’s why He continues to reach out to us. He isn’t a pathetic guy trying all sorts of things to win a girl. He’s God, who doesn’t need us but because of His love for us, it’s His JOY to reach out to us. There’s nothing pitiful about someone doing something He enJOYs.

If there’s anyone who is pitiful or kawawa, it’s us.

It’s like a royal prince of incredible beauty, love, kindness, strength, and wealth trying to win the heart of a dirty, poor, lost and lonely tramp. She has more to lose than he does. She’s the pitiful one.

I’m that dirty, poor, lost, and lonely tramp. I’m the pitiful one with all my mistakes and sins. So I run to God, not a pitiful God, but a beautiful, loving, kind, strong, and wealthy God who for some reason sees me as His joy.

And that reason is LOVE.

A guy passionately pursuing a lady he loves is pitiful and pathetic to everyone, but himself. That’s because he loves her in a greater way than the others. He will do more, try more, and offer more than anyone whose love is less. He will even suffer more, and by the way the word “passion” means “suffering”. This is also where we get the concept of the “Passion of Christ” or the “Suffering of Christ”. Yes it was hard. Yes it was painful. Yes it was shameful. But it wasn’t pitiful. It was passionate.

It was so passionate the centurion looking up at Him at the cross didn’t say, “Poor guy” but instead he said, “Surely He was the Son of God” (Matthew 27:54). You don’t say that about someone pitiful. You say that to someone who commands honor.

Love is a personal thing. It doesn’t have to make sense to others for it to make sense to you. In fact, it won’t make sense unless they love the same. This is why it’s impossible to fully comprehend God’s love, because we don’t and can never love Him as He loves us, so it won’t ever make as much sense to us as it does to Him. To us, God is kawawa because we feel bad for Him that He can relentlessly pursue people who stubbornly turn away (including myself). But what’s amazing is that He doesn’t pity Himself because He is chasing His joy, and even more amazing, like the lost sheep, the lost coin, the pearl, and the treasure in the field, to God, we’re worth it.

Now on the flip-side, are we responding to His love in obedience? My personal answer is, not always. Many times I find myself loving something that turns out to be meaningless. And that’s why I’m the poor man who is so grateful for my Father in Heaven who, despite that, is passionately in love with me.

June 19, 2011

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What's It Worth?

Definitions (Part 1)

This is my Fathers Day Post, though it is not exclusively about fathers. It’s a post about one very important role they play, and it’s also about reason, the reasons “why” we do things, but mostly, it’s a post about meaning.

Why am I writing this?

I have three reasons:

1. As a reminder to myself, an exercise to keep taking stock of my life and to purposefully live a life of significance. I’ve realized that I’ve used too many words loosely. It’s sad because I know I have a gift, and it’s meant to build others up. So it’s important, when I take stock of my life, to check and see if the gifts God has given me are being maximized. I know the weight of my words, and while I try to use them to encourage others through this blog, I’ve also used them to devastating effect. It’s one more item on my looooong list of things to improve on.

2. As an encouragement to others to not take life for granted, but instead enjoy it as something meaningful, and to take charge of defining their lives as something significant.

3. And for my last reason for writing this, is that it is my way of honoring fathers who take it upon themselves to set their children on a life of purpose, specifically my Pop, the father that I depended on as a child, and my heavenly Father that I depend on more than ever as a man.

Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say
One of the things I like to do, which many friends find irritating, is to ask people the definition of a word they just used. I hear people say simple words like “cool”, “favorite”, “best friend”, or even “love”, and I’ve noticed that most people are unable to define what they mean. I usually get the same reaction:

“I know what the word means, David, I just don’t know how to define it.”

No wonder so many lives are lived without purpose, longing to be “cool” and not realizing its mutability, that what is “cool” changes depending on time and place. No one thinking rationally would swallow smoke for dinner. Yet we chase “cool” and think achieving that will fulfill us.

No wonder we have so many broken promises. We don’t realize that to “promise” is to make a declaration and bind yourself either in honor, conscience or law to fulfill a certain act in the future. The worth of a promise has everything to do with the promise-giver.

No wonder we take advantage of “best friends”. We don’t realize that the word “friend” means:

One who is attached to another by affection; one who entertains for another sentiments of esteem, respect and affection, which lead him to desire his company, and to seek to promote his happiness and prosperity; opposed to foe or enemy.

And the word “best” means:

The most good. Most advanced. Most complete. Most correct. Most beneficial.

Put them together and we realize that the people we should be calling our “best friends” are actually not that many. That there is a spot for the “best” among just the “good”, and that if someone was our “best”, we should be seeking to promote his or her happiness and prosperity the most.

No wonder our relationships are so messed up in a society that sings, “All you need is love.” Who knows what love really means anymore? To understand the original meaning of love is to know that the definition of “love” is tied very closely to the concepts of “value” and “beauty”. We fall in and out of love because it’s been watered down to feelings and emotions on one extreme and obligation on the other. But to put it simply, love is to find something so beautiful and so valuable, that your emotions lead you to show affection. It’s to realize how excellent something is that you want it so bad. Love is reserved for excellent things – not shallow, empty, frivolous things. This is why to know God, to see His beauty and worth, is the best way to learn to love Him more. And that is why to love Him is our first duty – because He is most excellent, He is most beautiful, and He is most worthy. To love someone is to find and know for sure what makes that specific person beautiful and what her worth is, and to show your affection in word and action.

Words are important. They are powerful. They are powerful not because of the boldness of their font or the length of their spelling. They’re powerful because of one thing: their definition.

To define something is to put clear boundaries around it and say, “This is what this is. This is its meaning. This is its significance.” When we don’t know what something is, when we can’t clearly state its meaning, or don’t realize its significance, we drain our very powerful tool of its potency. We lose our ability to define our lives and default to the definitions others put. Worst of all, when our words, the terms that define our lives, are muddied, life itself becomes muddied chasing feelings, and not realizing to its fulness, the object, the moment, the person, that made the emotion meaningful.

To be continued…

March 30, 2010

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What's It Worth?

The Tet Offensive

This is a follow-up post to my last one: Greater Expectations. It continues to explore the concept of expectations and the role they play in building trust. I just want to be very clear that trust building is the goal of meeting or surpassing expectations – not man pleasing. Man pleasing is a useless exercise. I remember, back in high school, I tried to understand what “cool” actually meant so I started looking for examples of “cool”. What I found was a highly relative and highly subjective mix of very very diverse “cool” people – in other words there really is no objective “cool”. To chase man’s favor is to chase the wind. It’s great when it hits your face but don’t expect it to last.

But trust is something else. Trust is an open door into someone’s mind. It’s a key to the heart. It’s worth building, and what’s worth building is worth protecting.

I cringe when I think about people whose trust I’ve lost. That’s probably gone forever. Maybe there’s forgiveness there but I’ll never again have the chance to truly be a part of their life the same way. I’ve blown my chance. Which makes earning and keeping the trust of those I still can very important to me.

So really, when we talk about standards and expectations, we’r really talking about trust.

My dad has a new book coming out, it’s nearly done, and it’s shaping up to be something I would highly recommend. But in the manuscript is a whole section on trust, its importance, how its defined, and how we can build it. Wait for a copy. I’d like to share a thought connected to trust, and I’ll start by talking about a well-known event in the Vietnam War.

January 31, 1968, before many of us were even born, with 80,000 troops, the Communist launched a massive attack on 36 of 44 provincial capitals, five of the six major cities and 64 district capitals. This attack would become known as the Tet Offensive. The Communists lost about half their men in this attack and the Vietcong were now crippled.

The ironic thing is, while American and South Vietnamese troops won that battle, many experts say that the Tet Offensive was the turning point that lost them the war, not because they lost more men than the Vietcong, but because they lost the trust of the American people. (The start of Tet is the lunar new year.)

To make a long story short, the Americans back home, who had been told that they were winning the war, were so shocked at the televised images of the Tet Offensive, that they were convinced that the government had lied to them about the war, and they lost confidence in the administration. A loss of confidence is a loss of trust. And when there was no more confidence in being able to win the war (in the jungle as well as the political battlefield), the end had come.

I think about that story, and I think about the Pyrrhic victories of my personal life, the battles I may have won but has cost me dearly. I think about achievements that seemed to be so sweet, dates so hot, or businesses so lucrative, or the different things in my life that seemed like must-haves but have turned out to be expensive mistakes.

These are Tet Offensives of our lives. The battles we win that cost us the war.

Most regrettable are the relationships lost, and the open hearts closed, probably forever, because I had to prove myself right in my position, or had to win a basketball game, or a tennis match, or had prioritized achievement, or just couldn’t accept being last.

While I never really said it, for most of my life winning at all cost, getting what I want at all cost, always seemed right. Now that I’m an old 25 year old, there are some wins that aren’t worth it. They’re not worth it because of the pain they cause or the baggage they bring. They’re especially not worth it because of the trust these wins have destroyed.

If we win every theological debate, but close their hearts, we will lose their souls.
If we win the battle to provide for our family, but lose their trust, we will lose those that mean most to us.
If we win the battle to be elected into positions, but abuse our power, we will lose our country.
If we win on all fronts but lose the trust battle, we will ultimately lose the war – whatever that war may be.

December 15, 2009

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What's It Worth?

Price Tags

Think with me for a moment.

Let’s say the world was one big shopping mall, and you were in charge of valuation, how would you price things? What would a great life be worth? What about friendship? What about peace of mind? What about the feeling of sand on your feet? What would cost more, a successful career or a lifetime of rest? How much for a little silence? How much for an assurance of love? What would be more valuable to a child, secure finances brought about by working extra or a secure soul from more time with her parents?

Everything costs something but not everything is priced right.