What are you really good at? What recurring comments or suggestions do you receive from your customers or colleagues? Listening to customers, as well as colleagues and advisers is more than just noting the literal statements being made. It is also important to pick-up on verbal clues. I call this empathetic listening and it can help you add value to your products and services.

In the case of marine management software, simply adding features to our products because our customer says they need them doesn’t necessarily add value. Same goes for any business. Adding features to appease the few will disrupt the many. In software and web applications, layering feature upon feature makes products confusing and cumbersome. The value of your product is diminished if it causes frustration and anxiety because the customer is overwhelmed by features.

This scenario doesn’t just play out in the technology world. Ever go to a restaurant that had 50 to 100 items on the menu? It is down right overwhelming. Not only is it hard to choose, but I always ask myself “can these guys really perfect 50+ items?” The answer is typically “No”. Some of the best restaurants have 10 to 15 entrees that they’ve perfected. The menu changes over time as various ingredients go in and out of season. The goal is ultimate freshness for taste perfection.

So if you honestly ask yourself “what are you good at?” coupled with “what is your core business?”, you should be able to get the epicenter of your value. In their book REWORK, 37signals founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hanson talk about finding your epicenter and focusing on it like a laser. I will add that once you’ve perfected your epicenter, start adding “spokes to the wagon wheel”. There is a caveat! You can’t put all of your energy on “spokes” and neglect your “core”. The spokes must add value to the core.

Amazon illustrates this wonderfully with the Kindle. At the end of the day, Amazon distributes content. That content is typically in the form of books, CDs and e-books. The Kindle, their electronic book reader is a spoke as it gives readers another way to enjoy the content Amazon distributes. The Kindle adds value to their content and distribution empire.

There’s lots of talk about Apple’s iPad threatening the Kindle. While the iPad could certainly stymie Kindle sales, it should boost Amazon’s core – that is the distribution of books across various mediums. On 3/30/2010 an AP artcle in NYDailyNews.com stated “If the Kindle e-reader falls out of favor with people drawn to Apple’s offering, there could be a very thick silver lining for Amazon: It sells e-books that can be read on many kinds of devices, including the iPad and other Apple gadgets. That means the Kindle could fade and Amazon could still occupy a profitable perch in e-books.” In other words, the iPad becomes another spoke, or outlet for Amazon even though its not their product.

We have been looking for ways to help our customers provide better service to their customers, e.g. boaters. To that end, we have observed that more and more boaters want to use the internet to communicate with their marina, marine dealer or boatyard. Therefore we’ve decided to add web-based functionality to our core marina management system that allows customers to book a boat slip reservations online, submit an online service request or review invoices online.

What we as managers and business operators need to do is use these suggestions from customers and trusted advisers as points of reference. But you must have the fortitude and vision to guide your customers where they need to go. Just doing what they want today doesn’t necessarily help them or your business going forward.

“If I’d listened to customers, I’d have given them a faster horse.”
—HENRY FORD