Providing Real Value to Customers: A Lesson from Odesk's Typhoon Alert

Provide great value to your customers. When you provide great value, it makes it easy to do business with you. It makes it easy to say yes, to buy more, to pass referrals on to you. Make sure you're taking every step you can to provide real value to the people who are paying you. It's not that hard. I want to share a great example. So oDesk is a company that I love. It helps you find outsourced workers for your business. And so I have one worker for me named Gretchen who does some of my marketing. She's based in the Philippines. And one of the biggest challenges that people who hire remotely face is the people go offline. You're working well on a project, maybe you've worked together for a couple months, and then the person just goes MIA. They're gone. Like, where is this person? I have an important project and they're gone. They're not responding to emails. They're nowhere to be found. This sucks. And if you hire through a company like oDesk, then you don't just blame the worker, you also blame oDesk. And I know entrepreneurs who are friends of mine who refuse to hire on oDesk now because they had one bad experience and they blame oDesk for it. It's not that their hiring practices were crappy, right, or that maybe just hired the wrong person, but they blame oDesk. So that's, that's the challenge. For you as an entrepreneur, there are things that are outside your control that if customers have a bad experience with you, they're gonna blame you. I don't care if a typhoon hit your company, they're still gonna blame you and think that you are unreliable. So it's clearly explaining to customers what's going on and providing value. So oDesk, back to my oDesk story, a great example that came in. oDesk sent me an email and it started with, "Your freelancer may be affected." By typhoon in the Philippines. And they sent this whole email basically saying that a big typhoon hit the Philippines and people are having a hard time with their power and electrical outages. And you may not hear from your worker because they know I've hired somebody in the Philippines. And they say you may not hear from them or they may have a hard time connecting to you. This is huge value because I don't follow what's happening in the Philippines. How would I know if there was a typhoon? Part of my daily life is not going to check the weather in the Philippines. So they alerted me to a really important situation where if I didn't hear from my person for a week, it's not because they don't care, they just can't get internet because nothing is happening in the Philippines. It's not their fault, but I would blame them, right? If I didn't know this was happening, I would blame them, not hire them back, and I would blame oDesk. Having these crappy contractors. I'm not gonna go with them again. Why would I do that? What a waste of time. Meanwhile, it's a force that is completely outside anybody's control. So it's a great value-add from oDesk. Think about what else you could do for your business. Think about the value that you can provide, and maybe it's just something as clear as communicating what's going on, especially when factors are outside your control. Communicate that so your customers and prospects understand what's going on and they don't blame you. So congrats to ODesk, great job. For all you entrepreneurs out there, it's time to step up your game and offer more value to your customers. Believe. For those of you watching, thumbs up below if you like the video. I love seeing those come in, so thank you so much. And I want to hear from you. Please leave a comment underneath, let me know what you think. If you have a question, put it down there. I'll make a video response. Thank you so much, and I'll see you soon.