Do You Know the True Value of Your Services?

I’m sure you’ve heard the marketing term USP (Unique Selling Proposition) – it’s been around for years!  But have you heard of Value Propositions?  More importantly do you have one for your business services?

What is a Value Proposition?

It’s an attention-grabbing tool that will take the relationship with your prospect from stranger to ‘tell me more’. In the time-starved society we live in, you only have a very short window of opportunity to stand out and a well-crafted value proposition will help you to do that. I first read about this concept in Jill Konrath’s excellent book Selling to Big Companies, which I recommend to any small business trying to do just that.

Consider creating prospect-based value propositions. This means defining which value of each of your products or services match each prospect persona or type. Identify the specific values that align with each prospect type for each of your offerings. Revisit them occasionally, and update as market situations change.

You may find it helps if you create different scenarios and view them from your customer’s eyes.  Keep in touch with your customers so you can find out how their needs are changing; this will also enable you to keep customers longer as you add new features and products to your portfolio.

What issues are your prospects facing?

Find out what they are struggling with. If your prospects are other businesses, there are usually a few key issues, such as:  attract enough clients; make enough profit; get everything done; keep staff?  If your prospects are individuals, it’s often a similar story: attract the right partner; make enough money; get everything done; handle relationships effectively.

What results do your prospects want that you can deliver?

You want to be able to offer results which are both tangible and measurable so it’s important you are able to identify what results your customers achieve from working with you.

Depending on your customer, what they value is likely to be very different to what the customer down the road values. For example, one may want time saving tools to make their job easier, whereas another may only be interested in the results achieved.

So your Value Proposition isn’t going to be the same for every client, nor for all the services you offer. A common mistake is to keep using the same statement from the day you first set up in business – even though the world has moved on since then. The need your customers had yesterday for more efficient business processes may have changed to improved productivity using online collaboration tools as part of those processes.

Knowing the true value of the services you offer and weaving it into your marketing materials in the form of a value proposition, will help you to sell with more confidence.

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