Value Co-Creation is a topic that should be top of mind for everyone that runs a business. It has implications for executives at large corporations, freelancers, and contingent professionals. However, it doesn’t get the consideration it deserves in practice.
Welcome to the Subscription Maker Podcast. This is your host Zachary Alexander, Enterprise Architect at SubscriptionMaker.net. Please hit the subscribe button where ever you get your podcasts so that you won’t miss any new episodes.
Just to clarify, you can’t pick up a self-help book about starting a business or delivering services without a reference to value co-creation. However, most of this content doesn’t adequately address the real importance of value co-creation to your future success. We will talk about value co-creation as a way of building trust and what this means to you as a subscription maker.
What is Value Co-Creation?
You can think of value co-creation as an act of business collaboration. Another way is as a partnership relationship that you form with your customers or subscribers. You do it as a way to share emotional ownership.
There are a lot of different ways to achieve value co-creation. One way is to hold a contest and challenge members of your community to solve a program. Another way is to ask members of your community to participate in the build-out of your facilities. You see this with makerspaces. Makerspace organizers will use their members as volunteer labor to undertake construction tasks before opening the facility.
Hosting a survey is the most common way. You send surveys to members of your audience for their feedback. The key is to take action once you receive the results. If you don’t do anything, then you will not be trusted by the people who matter most to your business, your stakeholders.
How does Value Co-Creation relate to Service-Dominant Logic?
For the record, not all value co-creation is done in support of service-dominant logic. You could make the case that the majority of value co-creation is done for recognition. The best example of this is “crowdsourcing.” The goal of solving the problem may or may not be in support of providing a service. It may just be to find the best solution or providing ideas for product enhancements.
Service-Dominant Logic is a specific application of business logic that uses specialized knowledge and other resources on behalf of and for the benefits of others. Service is explicit. Customer Success is at the heart of the process. It is not simply an accident. You can read more about this topic in the segment called, “How Service-Dominant Logic could benefit You.”
How does Value Co-Creation contribute to growth?
Traditionally, value co-creation has contributed to growth in the form of product enhancements. Companies decide on product improvements as a part of their strategic planning. Other times it could be done because a competitor introduces a similar product enhancement. The most salient point is that it happens because of internal deliberation.
Post-Globalism, it’s happening in most cases at the request of and in support of customers. Gone are the days when the company holds all the cards when it comes to industry knowledge. Now there are external influencers who hold just as much power as those at top of the organizations. These influencers answer to no one except their friends and neighbors, and potentially your future subscribers.
Today, growth comes from how well you manage your influencer relations. If you do it well then you can expect them to bring you descriptions of new projects or programs. They will take on all comers in social media who make the mistake of denigrating your services. If you do it poorly then you find it very difficult to grow or keep up with your competitors.
What does this mean for you as a subscription maker?
Most subscription services don’t start with value co-creation. They start with you being of service to your potential subscriber community. You do this by adopting service-dominant logic and finding ways to be of service to your future subscribers.
Eventually, you will attract influencers to your cause, then you can ask them for feedback on your project. Establishing relationships with influencers is hard. It is time-consuming. And in some instances, it can be downright humiliating.
Before you are done, you will run into people who will try to use the movement that you are co-creating for their purposes. The challenge is not that these people exist. It’s finding the intestinal fortitude to keep going, to keep looking for value co-creation opportunities. Success will mean that someday you’ll benefit from a creative lifestyle and the security of recurring income.
Conclusion
Value Co-Creation is hard and time-consuming. It can be tedious listening to people tell you to change things before they fully grasp what you are trying to do. On the other hand, the rewards for subscription makers are limitless. Everyone has to start somewhere.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Subscription Maker Podcast. This is your host Zachary Alexander. The music track was called, “Give me some answers” by the New Fools. You can find it at Epidemic Sound. Finally, you can find me on Facebook at Zachary T Alexander. Please, send me a friend request so that we can continue this conversation.