Value Propositions

An elevator pitch or unique selling proposition is a short statement about your company and/or product.

But in a world where buyers don't care about companies, products or services, what you really need is a strong value proposition.

A Value Proposition is a clear measurable statement of the business outcomes delivered by your products or services.

In Jill Konrath's excellent book, Selling to Big Companies, she dedicates an entire chapter to "Strengthening Your Value Proposition." Please go to Amazon and buy Jill's book.After you read it, please write a great review, as I know you'll love it.

I share some key concepts from Jill's book, but buy it to read the rest.

Jill shares Guidelines for Strong Value Propositions:

• Talk outcomes, not products or processes 
• Tie results to critical business issues 
• Use business terminology 
• Include metrics or statistics 
• Refer to actual customer successes 

The best way to get value proposition is to go ask your existing customers.Tell them you want to learn about the value of your offering to thier organization and how it helped them run their business better.

Another good approach is to brainstorm with your colleagues: What problems does our product, service or solution solve? How to these problems impact other part of the company? How does our product, service or solution affect our customer's bottom line or expenses? What postitive impact has our offering had on bringing additional revenue or business to our clients? Does our offering enable our customers to achievec a competitive advantage? Does our offering have a positive impact on our customer's customer's?

Throughout this process, keep asking "So what?" If you hear about features or capabilities, ask it. If you hear robust or world-class, ask it again.Keep asking until you get it right.