What is Value?

What do you consider value? If you pay to file your taxes is the value you gain as a result of simply filing or is it because your tax guy knows what he is doing and has saved you money year after year? And suppose he really hasn’t done anything special… would the great service and refund you would have gotten anyway merit the extra five hundred you spent walking into a ritzy office I a high rise building downtown? It just might.

This week, my coworkers and I spent a great deal of time talking about perceived value and how it may be even more important than actual value. It’s sort of akin to beauty being in the eye of the beholder. Every person may value something for a different reason. Some like myself love learning, some value time they get back, some value cost savings– some value all three or none or other things completely. It really makes you question what value stands for. You begin to differentiate the true monetary or physical value of something compared to its perceived value.

So why does any of this even matter? Well, to understand perceived value is to understand people and in understanding people you get to know what is most important to them– family, wealth, health, freedom, etc. You can’t reach people if you don’t get them. As a writer this is extremely important because we target audiences and need to know our readers. So what do we do? We listen, we understand and then we can create value for those around us or even ourselves.

Happy writing this week!

Filed under: romance