Putting the control into the hands of the individual
What is value communication?
Value communication can be any form of communication, where value is generated by one party (called the Experts) during a session. It is based around the oldest, most direct and trusted connection people can have; a 1:1 conversation. We like to think of Experts sharing knowledge and their know-how on one side, and the knowledge seekers on the other. Think industries like consulting, psychology, coaching, tutoring or fitness.
We coined the term value communication to capture all the examples above and to showcase two clear drivers that we see: the transfer of knowledge and that the value lies in the individual.
Two aspects of value communication are highlighted in this article. One, is the aspect that hinders its online and global existence, and the second is how we addressed and continue to address these challenges with the creation of Telebond.
Lack of supporting integrated solutions
The world is going online, and more and more aspects of our lives are moving from the traditional offline modes, to the digital sphere. This is normal, and it creates numerous opportunities to reach out to new markets and participants, to streamline processes and make the offline practices more efficient.
Digitalization makes the background infrastructure and processes so streamlined, experts will be having more time to deal with essential tasks and relationships — creating more value for themselves and for others. This is a true win/win situation.
At the least, digitalization should be about efficiency
In the interviews that we’ve conducted, we saw experts burdened by answering emails, scheduling, running after payments and communicating on multiple channels just to get through the initial call.
Professionals (coaches, psychologists) use emailing for initial contact; Google Calendar for scheduling, bank transfers for payment and then Skype for the video sessions. This is a dispersed process.
In an ideal setup you would only need one solution to guide you through the sales process: a solution that seamlessly integrates into your existent online setup, and does all the job for you. Multiple tools makes the steps chaotic and take time away from the actual value creation.
The global individual
The individual
This is the age of the individual; you can see it with sharing economy tools popping up everyday. There’s Uber for transportation, AirBnB for accommodation and TaskRabbit for works around the house. What connects them is their focus on the individual and what a single person can deliver with their own resources.
The yearly Freelancer Report from Upwork states that in 2015 there were almost 54 million people in the US who were freelancing. This constitutes as the 34% of the American workforce. According to Forbes it can grow to 50% by 2030 — this is no surprise as 80% of the non-freelancing workforce is thinking of freelancing in the coming years. In the European Union, freelancing has the biggest growth rate through all segments of the labour market.
The global individual
We’ve been talking with experts all across Europe, and what we found is that knowledge — as it is now — understands the concept of borders. You rarely find an expert who is serving someone from a different language, let alone a different country. The emergence of the sharing economy should not be limited by borders, languages or expensive international bank transfers.
We need a solution; a trustworthy platform where people can feel safe to communicate across borders and languages which handles affordable payment in the background.
Why do we want to change value based communication?
We take this challenge and the responsibility it comes with. Our founders coming from the financial industry, set a goal to create an infrastructure, that they themselves would be comfortable using to give and gain knowledge through a trusted platform, with secure payment.
Their goal was to create an online tool that combines all sorts of communication (video, chat, file transfer) and payment in a user friendly and secure way. Enhancing trust and supporting global, individual value communication, is still in its infancy.
We just started, but can’t wait to be part of the next generation of sharing economy tools, where trust is created not by peer-reviews, but rather within the system and close group social recommendations.
For other articles from Telebond and advice on how to take your business online, keep your eye on the official Telebond Blog or follow us on Twitter. Or you can sign up here to make your online business better instantly.
