{"id":162,"date":"2006-07-11T09:07:22","date_gmt":"2006-07-11T14:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/?p=162"},"modified":"2006-07-11T09:07:21","modified_gmt":"2006-07-11T14:07:21","slug":"putting-your-value-proposition-in-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/07\/putting-your-value-proposition-in-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting Your Value Proposition in Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Should Customers Do Business with You?<\/a> provides some guidance in determining your value proposition. A jaw-dropping stat from the opening paragraph (emphasis mine):<\/p>\n

…business consultant Jaynie Smith could find only two out of 1,000 CEOs who could name their competitive advantages<\/strong>. That’s a stunning figure because competitive advantage, and a company’s ability to trumpet that advantage to the marketplace, is the most surefire way to close deals, retain clients, and stay miles ahead of the competition, says Smith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I realize that CEO’s are occupied with all facets of the business beyond sales, but every company I have worked for has integrated the CEO into large customer interactions. At one company, the CEO preferred to discuss theories on a chalkboard with prospects instead of qualifying the deal. To make matters worse, the CEO was a veritable genius in this field and would often provide free solutions to the prospect that other customers were already paying to receive!<\/p>\n
Further into the article, this simple truth emerges:<\/p>\n
“Customers want to know in concrete terms what it is about your product or service that is better than the rest,” says Smith.
\n…your product or service doesn’t have to be special by itself for you to have a compelling advantage over your competition. Instead, “the way you make it, test it, package it, deliver it, as well as other extras you provide, can make the critical difference,” says Smith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Again, this point sounds simple in theory but is difficult in practice. When developing your value proposition, test all of your ideas with “so what?” What this means is test your idea. After stating it, ask yourself “so what?” This question will help focus your value proposition and translate it into the prospect’s world.<\/p>\n
A good example to parse out from the article:<\/p>\n
“We just invested $2 million in the latest manufacturing technology”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So what?<\/em><\/p>\n
“which allows us to double production output”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So what?<\/em><\/p>\n
“(the technology) shortens your delivery time by 50 percent”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Bingo. That is a real world value proposition that has some legs. Now this company needs to translate this improvement to the marketplace. I’m not sure how the 50% shows up, but I would hope it would be something like:<\/p>\n
Our modern manufacturing technology means we deliver your widgets to you in half the time<\/strong> of our competitors.<\/font><\/p>\n
Even mediocre salespeople could put that value proposition in play successfully . . . well, at least they would have something strong to put in play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why Should Customers Do Business with You? provides some guidance in determining your value proposition. A jaw-dropping stat from the opening paragraph (emphasis mine): …business consultant Jaynie Smith could find only two out of 1,000 CEOs who could name their competitive advantages. That’s a stunning figure because competitive advantage, and a company’s ability to trumpet that advantage to the marketplace, is the most surefire way to close deals, retain clients, and stay miles ahead of the competition, says Smith. I realize that CEO’s are occupied with all facets of the business beyond sales, but every company I have worked for has integrated the CEO into large customer interactions. At one… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-2C","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}