Sunshine can't be bought but you will see sunshine sold every month of the year. Sunshine can't be touched but can be felt as a warm glow or a burning heat. The lack of sunshine is instantly recognized and potentially perceived as a burden.
Sunshine is used as an enticement and yet those who use it as such do not "own" it.
When you live in Seattle, you change plans when sunshine appears. The symptoms of Seattle sunshine are easily recognized in absenteeism. (Too sunny to work)
The results of sunshine can be seen but most do not have the foggiest notion of how to measure sunshine. Even when you let someone know that Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder is the tool of choice to measure sunshine, who cares? "I can see with my own two eyes whether the sun is shining."
Many take pride of their time in the sun and do arm to arm suntan measurements. A good tan from sunshine is "cool" but among the healthy, a tan is not so "cool" as they think of potential cancer risks.
Vacations in the sun are popular with beaches, sun, skiing, sun, lakes, sun. Businesses use sunshine as a potential benefit but offer no promises. Traveling, hotels, Hawaii, cruises and vacations are but a few examples.
You might even hear someone using sunshine as a means of recruitment.
We sometimes kiss or swoon because of the sunshine (sunset). Do you measure kiss partially based on the color of sunshine? Of course you do.
It has been proven scientifically that a lack of sunshine harms humans both physically and psychologically. A remedy can be using a fake sun in the shape of a light bulb. Even the fake sunshine is better than none.
Which brings me to my point.
Sell products or services as if they are sunshine.
Sunshine can be compared to happy, collaboration, beauty, team, savvy, intuition, pain, thinking and other terms which have no direct measurement.
"I am thinking hard about it"
...could mean anything and every entrepreneur loves to know that someone is thinking hard about their business. Thinking hard can't be measured or confirmed.
"It was painful to talk with that customer."
Not the first words we like to hear when owning a business.
"You need to work with a business marketing coach who has savvy!"
That sounds great! Do you have an App for measuring how savvy a coach might be?
"That is the best team to work with. No one works better together than they do."
Can this be measured by the amount of time they don't talk, smile, nod, have lunches together or how they agree with fewer arguments? Everyone wants and needs a cooperative team. What is the measure? ...like sunshine.
Your sunshine
In essence, for an entrepreneur who is selling a product like sunshine; it is a puzzle. It makes more sense to focus on the benefits than the sunshine itself. Turning sunshine into the "best tan of the summer" or "biggest sunflower of the year" might be an alternative to "best sunshine".
Another example is enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm
...have some and show that you do. Hire people with it. Hang around people with it. Create an environment where enthusiasm thrives. Use social media tools with enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm sounds a bit like sunshine. Appreciated, wanted and needed but not necessarily measurable. Is it missing? How do you know? Have you lost it? When?
Have a party where there is plenty of sunshine and I am sure the enthusiasm will return.
Measure the benefits
Find a way to measure benefits in quantitative and qualitative ways of the "sunshine product" you are selling and those who buy will have more to share.
If you don't have the ability to measure benefits, create your own with polls.
Polls are ways to measure thoughts, feelings of those you serve. You will hear plenty of polls in the coming months in an election year.
If your product or service is a bit like sunshine and you need to measure the benefits, you will be conducting many polls and surveys which will indicate trends from the past and how the competition compares.
Here are poll websites you might find helpful for making a poll to create and measure results:
- Doodle.ch
- Dpolls
- EmbraceMobile
- FeeFo
- FreePollKit
- Freepolls
- Micropoll
- PollDaddy
- Quibblo
- SodaHead
- SurveyGizmo
- SurveyPopups
Measuring the benefits makes it easier for others understand value. If you don't know the benefits, take a poll.
