Product Camp Austin: Total Vision

JAN F. TRIPLETT, Ph.D. Chief Operating Officer at Business Success Center presented in the 11am slot at today’s Product Camp Austin.

Attendance was somewhat sparse at this session, and many attendees of this session were small business owners.   Jan was clearly quite excited her subject matter and perhaps that made it all a bit hard to follow.  The following notes are my takeaways — but I’ll warn you, I didn’t experience any “aha!” moments in this session.

Techniques for a Valuable Vision

• Cloning – Something that can easily be reproduced, without a great deal of additional effort with each replication.
• Control Time & Costs – If you want to do the work yourself, you create value by controlling the time and costs.  A lower investment reduces the ROI lists.
• Unique – To charge a premium, you need to be unique.  And the more unique you are, the higher price you should charge.  Competitive pricing doesn’t exist in your vocabulary.  Yours is the highest price.
• Reselling – These companies find interesting and unique things and bring them into your offering.

Passion & Potential

• Your vision must be rooted in your passion and your potential.  If you don’t have a passion for what you’re doing, Jan contends that you’ll either burn out or end up in the mental hospital.
• She asks, what potential do YOU bring that says this passion can be successful?

Focus on the Goal

Jan suggests that the following goals make sense for both businesses and individual employees.

• Profitability. You need to make a living wage.
• Sustainability. Its gotta be something that can be continued and can adapt to changes (which may originate both internally and externally.)
• Balance. Vacations and time off clear the mind.
• Transferable. The vision needs to go far enough that you can get out of it when you want to; you should build in an exit strategy.

Your vision must account for the customer’s mental models.  Jan showed a 7-step Purchasing Process.

The customers you want share your vision, who are willing to take the risk of trusting you, and who are decisive.  Fence-sitters can waste your time.  She recommends qualifying your leads very tightly to ensure not wasting your time.

And finally, pricing your product includes analysis of both your true total cost and the perception of value…

See also

1. Product Camp Austin: From Product Management To Social Product Management
2. Product Camp: Networking Like A Pro
3. Exciting January Events in Austin