If you’ve read the previous post about developing your value proposition, and if you’ve been practising producing your own value proposition, you’re well on the way to having something positive and useful to say about your business.
Creating a great value proposition
Thus far, you’ve been thinking about the impact your interventions have. You’ve been thinking about the outcomes you deliver.
I ended the last post by raising the question that customers and potential customers will ask. That is:
“By how much will you …..
…..improve
…..reduce
…..enhance
…..speed up
…..decrease
…..whatever it is you are promising to address?”
You value proposition will be incomplete if you don’t have the answer.
This means you need metrics in your value proposition. Metrics bring your statements about value and worth to life.
Unfortunately most consultants and other experts hesitate and falter at this point. They shy away from specifics.
After all, you’d be ill advised to promise to decrease customer complaints by 10% before you know anything about your new client’s business.
So what do you do?
Simple.
You give an indication of what’s possible and then make your commitments to the client when you know what’s achievable and when you’re clear about what you’re prepared to be measured against.
Metrics matter – so use your own case studies
If you’ve been in business for a while, you’ll have a string of achievements to help you with this. You’ll know what you’re achieving for your clients. You’ll know what’s possible and what your interventions are likely to deliver.
Your case studies will help you to build trust in your abilities to deliver. Trust is a vital element in your value proposition.
You’re an expert in your field, so you know how much waste reduction is possible or how much new business can be generated in six weeks using a new social media campaign.
Use your case studies to build trust because your case studies are all about your track record.
I use case studies to demonstrate our success and to reassure.
One of our clients, for example, adopted a focused Twitter strategy that we designed for him and within six weeks had gained a piece of new business worth £27,000. He is confident he could not have gained this business without our intervention.
That fact gives an indication of what can be achieved. This success was the result of using a systematic approach to working with social media and especially Twitter.
This statistic, and a few others like them, would help me to add real life experience to my value proposition and to indicate the sort of gains business can make using social media effectively. They also show where to come for the advice, support and guidance to achieve those results.
However, there are other sources of metrics, too.
Metrics matter – so use industry statistics
You’re an expert in your specialism. You know your industry or sector. Therefore, you will be able to use industry statistics to help you to make your case to your customers.
Use industry statistics to help you to build your credibility.
For example, I learned last week that in the UK 23% of time spent on the web is spent using social media sites. I also have some information about the breakdown of usage and the concerns many employers have about the investment of business time in Twitter, Facebook and so on.
When I’m crafting my value proposition I can focus on achieving the impact a client wants to achieve via social media in less time. I can talk about being more focused on the social media channels that matter. I can talk about using social media applications more effectively. This is all good news for the client and good news for me, because we can quantify savings to be achieved and improvements sought quite easily.
Selling difference
If you’re now crafting value propositions that include metrics, you’re able to have different types of discussions with your prospective customers and your clients. That will help your business because you’re starting to talk about selling difference, improvements and change.
Your value proposition is now differentiated from every one else’s and you’ll almost certainly start to win more business as a result.
What comes next?
If you like this post please tweet about it and use your favourite social media application to let others know about it.
Leave a comment below and let me know how you’re getting on with your value propositions.
In the next post in this series I’ll be dealing with where to use your value propositions because now you have something valuable to say, you need to say it in the right places.
About Margaret Adams
It’s good to see someone thniknig it through.