Читать книгу Attractive Thinking - Chris Radford - Страница 6

Foreword

Mike Harris

Creator of Iconic Shift mentoring

Founder of First Direct and Egg

Former CEO of Mercury Communications

I have spent a large part of my career creating brands that disrupted the incumbent providers. Each business went on to be sold for significant amounts or created noticeable value for their shareholders reflected in share price, revenue and profit. First Direct was the first telephone bank without branches, Mercury Communications (the Mercury consumer business was ultimately acquired by Virgin Media) was the first challenger to the BT monopoly, Egg was the first internet bank and Garlik (acquired by Experian) provides internet security for everyday people and everyday businesses that goes beyond credit checking, anti-virus software and consumer cyber insurance.

For each of these brands the team worked relentlessly to create a customer experience that was much better than the prevailing norm. We learned that helping customers solve a problem or address a need is the best way to create sustainable growth and to build value for the shareholders.

From these experiences I have drawn some conclusions about what is required to grow a brand that creates shareholder value. This is summed up in some teachable intellectual property I have developed that I call Iconic Shift. I believe a company wishing to develop a powerful, value-creating brand must pass four tests:

1 A value proposition for their customers that is relevant, distinctive and differentiated.

2 The proposition is communicated with sufficient power and reach.

3 The promised experience is delivered every time, everywhere and every day.

4 The business economics work.

High-growth brands have these four things in place. When growth slows down it is because one or more of these elements is not working as well as it could.

I have worked with Chris. His Attractive Thinking approach and method is the most powerful tool I have come across to help you gain the insight from your customers and turn this into a value proposition for your customers and create the means to communicate it with sufficient power. In my experience many businesses do not pay enough attention to the value they create and offer to their customers. Instead they are focused on how much money they can extract from their customers. Attractive Thinking explains why creating value is better than extracting it and shows you how to do it.