What if you’re asked: “What is your value proposition?” Could you answer? What is your value and how do you deliver it to the people and places around you? And how is that different than anyone else in your position? Anyone in business needs a value proposition. Why then do so few people know their value proposition, let alone communicate it effectively? Here is a simple way to format your value proposition.
Value Proposition
1. Capability: What do you do and how do you do it?
2. Impact: What benefits or differences will your capability make?
3. Proof: What evidence substantiates your impact?
4. Cost: The cost (or risk) of your capability and its impact
Eight-Part Sniff Test for Value Propositions
1. Be as specific and clear as possible. Use simple words. Active verbs. Muscular nouns.
2. Avoid any self-serving statements, hype or false promises.
3. State emphatically how your value differs from your competitors.
4. Communicate a single, powerful benefit with a tangible outcome or measurable result.
5. Create a sense of urgency.
6. Mitigate the seller’s or buyer’s risk.
7. Make it clearly understood in less than five seconds.
8. Establish credibility and provability
A universal, fill-in-the-blanks template for producing your value proposition:
For _______________________________ (the target prospect)
Who______________________________ (specific need, demands, buying criteria)
We provide________________________ (solution name)
That______________________________ (specifies benefits and business values to prospects)
Because Unlike_____________________ (the competition)
Who______________________________ (provide solution, features, functions, benefits)
Our company delivers________________ (better approach, solution, features, benefits)
That______________________________ (offers a ________customer experience)
You may differentiate value on communication, customer service, your process or consistent delivery of results. You may differentiate on efficiency, exclusivity or flawless execution, but you must be able to prove it, and demonstrate its value from the perspective of your prospect. Once written, keep polishing down to the statement’s purest essence. Then test it. Your value statement will earn you plenty of business Write one today!