'How did you become so wealthy?' is a question I've asked plenty of people in my life. But the answer I got from a very successful colleague of mine when I worked at Xerox wasn't about a product, or a service, or a sales  or marketing strategy. It was about a belief that underpinned everything he did. His answer was this. "I got rich by making other people rich... I add value to peoples lives." He took it upon himself every day, to go out and add value to peoples lives - whether it was his clients', or his customers' or his friends'. Now you're not necessarily going make people rich simply by adding value to them, but by believing you can add value in a way specific to your industry, the wealth in whatever form it may be, will follow. Let me use Queensberry as an example. We add value to our customers by doing three things: 1) Helping our clients make more money - by differentiation 2) Saving our clients time - by offering to do their post-production work or providing tools so they can do things more easily 3) Giving our clients with a better experience than anyone else If our clients don't feel like we deliver on at least one of those areas - we may as well not exist and we wouldn't be flourishing if you didn't add value to your customer's lives in some way.

You need to express your care in a way people will value

I wrote a while ago about how I demonstrate my love for my wife Sonya by turning her light off for her each night. I do this because I know that she likes me doing it. The same principle applies in business. It's our job to understand how our clients like to be loved and what makes them tick. Then we can go the extra mile and add value in a way they didn't even know we could. At Queensberry, we know it's simply not enough to just add value to our clients' (Photographers) lives as they are not the end user. Their Brides and Grooms are the ones turning the pages of our albums, cherishing the memories and emotionally connecting with the story they tell. It's our goal to add value to them also by providing a treasure that they can remember their day by and hand down through the generations. If we do it right, we might even provide Brides and Groom's with an experience better than they had on the day. Their album is a reflection of the detail, the emotion, the love, the family, the venue... most of which is often just a blur. We're adding value to our clients, by also adding value to theirs.

Be clear how you add value to your clients

The challenge is to do it in an authentic, respectful and in way that honors people, and real value is only really provided when it's perceived as of value from the other persons perspective. When a Bride and Groom cries when they open their album for the first time, or when our product helps a photographer up-sell to their clients, or when we can help a photographer spend more time with their family by doing some of their work for them - we've added value to their life in a way that no marketing or sales strategy could ever achieve. Cheers, Stephen.