In business, everything comes down to economics. What I mean by that is Whatever it is you can provide for your customers in exchange for their money, it should generate more business for them.
And if you make this outcome clear, and you have evidence that you can deliver; people will buy from you. It's as simple as that. I live in a world where everything I do with people directly and indirectly impacts them, making more money. I'm so focused on this outcome that even our organizational purpose is to help entrepreneurs make more money.
The ROI for somebody working with me is crystal clear. And I have plenty of evidence to support that. However, not every industry has the luxury of such a clear (and measurable) outcome.
Take design, for example. I love the design and Am Very design-friendly. I believe great design makes a huge difference everywhere. We all intuitively know the importance of putting our best face forward. Just look at how we react to beautiful things. We want our companies to be attractive, just like we want people to be attractive. But these are all very subjective and intangible things.
To my knowledge, nobody has yet developed a quantitative element of great design. What would clearly define the "return on design" is" Something that says, 'You're going to make more money because of having a better design."
Does this mean it can't be done? Not necessarily. It means that nobody has yet spent enough time on a "case study" on the impact of design on a business's bottom line. But if you can crack the code and show people in plain numbers: "These companies had poor design. Then they made an investment and changed it to this… and here's what happened next…"
If you can do that, you'll never have to convince people to invest in great design.
See, the truth is if you want your prospects to see the value of what you can do for them, be it design or whatever you do. You need to establish
metrics with clear outcomes and clear ROI...
As I said, in business, it all comes down to economics. And if the economics aren't clear, people do buy aren't clear; people won't buy.