Have You Used Your Customer Eyes Recently?

My son just went back to school on Tuesday.  He’s in 5th grade this year. 

One of his first assignments was to write a short, one page paper on what he learned from a discussion his class had on ethical reasoning.

Here’s his paper:

The 6 Levels Of Ethical Reasoning
By: Zach Daniel
 
Lawrence Kohlberg did a study on a school to find different reasons for people to do good things. He came up with 6 levels of reasons.

The 6 levels of ethical reasoning are:

1. Avoiding punishment. This is the lowest level, and it means you only did a good thing to avoid being punished.
2. Rewards. This level is usually seen in early childhood, (if you do this, you get a sticker. If you do that, no sticker for you, young man.)
3. Be a “good” person. It means that you do something good publicly, to make it known that you are “good”.
4. Laws/Rules. Doing a good thing that is seen to be “good” by a rule and avoiding doing “bad” things. (Things against the rules.)
5. Social agreement. Doing things seen right by the majority of society.
6. Universal principle. Doing something because your conscience tells you it is the right thing to do.

The first two are in an external theme: they both help the person in question either get what he wants, or not get in trouble. It means doing something right because of an external influence.

The next two are in the middle between internal and external: in both of them, the person would do something right on purpose (internal) to get an external result (external).

The final two levels are internal: doing the right thing that you or a group working together see being “right”. And that is even if no one is around to see it and give you a reward – it’s just for the sake of doing the right thing.

Kohlberg also discovered that people tend to go up the levels as they age: the older they get, the higher the level, and hit 6 around teen years. I find it interesting that even if you can’t pronounce ethical reasoning, people “use” the levels every day to make decisions.

Ok, why am I showing you my son’s paper?

Well, I’m proud of him for writing it, of course. 

Is he Rhodes Scholar material? Only time will tell :-)

But what I am amazed at is how early his class is discussing ethical reasoning.  I don’t even remember discussing this when I was in school.

It also made me think about how we, as marketers, run our own businesses.

In actual practice, Kohlberg says, we can reach just decisions by looking at a situation through one another's eyes. 

I think this is invaluable for thinking about your Big Ticket Marketing efforts.  When you make decisions about your product offerings and your business are you looking at them through your customers’ eyes? Here are questions that come to mind:

1. Having identified a target niche market, what products can you offer that provide huge value for the customers of that market?
2. How can you price this product fairly based on market demand and on the value provided to your customer?
3. What bonuses can you provide to your customer that are so valuable that they would be worth the price of the actual product itself?
4. What valuable information can you give your customer, even before they purchase to build their trust in you and your products?
5. What valuable information and extras can you give your customer after they have purchased so you can reaffirm their trust in you and your products?
6. Do you have a completely risk free money back guarantee for your products and services?
7. Do you provide prompt and hassle free returns on your products and services? 
8. Do you treat your customers even better than you would want to be treated yourself?
9. Do you offer your customers other products that you personally own or have used and which you highly recommend that can help them with their businesses or problems?
10. Are you giving your joint venture partners a great deal for helping you promote your products and services?

Ok, this list could go on forever but I think it gives you some ideas about questions you can use in your own Big Ticket marketing business. 

I wonder what new and interesting areas I’ll end up learning from my son next! 

-Chuck