Why Create a Value Proposition and How to Do It
Your early business may feel like creating a lot of idea maps, focusing on graphics and UX design, and other long conversations that aren’t producing or selling anything. And making a great value proposition likely falls in line with seemingly overcomplicated discussions.
But your value proposition is essential to how you interact with your clients, the products or services you develop and sell, and how you sell them. And while there’s a chance you can successfully manage your business without a defined value proposition, you’ll be leaving it up to chance. So instead, let’s get into the driver’s seat of your business success!
We’ll walk you through what a value proposition is and where you’ll use it in your business. Then we’ll cover how to build your value proposition and how to formalize it. Let’s get started!
What’s a Value Proposition and How Will You Use It?
A value proposition is a simple statement that describes the benefits you provide and sets an expectation for how they will get and experience your product or service. Your client base should easily understand what you offer, why they want it, and why they don’t want to wait to purchase.
Functionally, you will likely post your value proposition directly on your website, communicate it through your marketing and branding, and use it to inform your sales journey. It also helps align your employee efforts across departments to create a cohesive culture and brand.
How to Create a Value Proposition
Creating a value proposition requires understanding your ideal client base, your offering, and what the two groups have in common. Without this exercise, you can easily signal the wrong buyer group or miss what will connect the most with your ideal client base.
- Identify Your Ideal Client With a Profile
Creating a customer profile is about understanding your target buyer group through a single characterization. This allows you to simplify your base group by averaging demographics like average age, marital or family status, regional factors, and income.
It also helps you create a back story of their journey to solve the problem you’ve solved. For example, what products or services have they tried already? Why weren’t those attempts a good fit for their needs?
You may have multiple ideal customer profiles, but try to limit your number. The most successful companies have a laser focus on one ideal customer. This also allows you to better evolve with your customer base.
- Define What Value You Offer
Next is to clarify what your product, service, pricing model, and sales experience offer. Focus on the following questions to get started:
- What pain points are you solving for your client?
- Why is now an excellent time for a client to buy from you?
- Why are you the best option for your clients?
Your finished value proposition should communicate the answer to these three questions.
- Determine How Your Ideal Client and Offering Best Align
Now you’re ready to compare your ideal client to your value map. This will help you to identify the most essential values that will highlight your offering to your ideal customer. Then you can create a statement that will send the right signals to that group.
For example, Steve Jobs would simply frame his value propositions as:
“We help X to do Y by doing Z.”
This elegant phrasing makes it incredibly easy to identify your target client base, highlight their problem, and explain how you solve it.
Putting It In Words
You may have several bullet points or important factors identified after completing the previous exercise, and that’s ok! While value propositions are typically a single statement, there are ways to incorporate more nuance when presenting it to your staff and consumers.
Modern marketing usually incorporates three or four parts to a value statement:
- Simple heading: the punchy part of your value proposition.
- Subheading: a follow-up statement beneath the heading adds nuance to your value proposition.
- Highlight a few features: you can take a line or two to list some of the most important features.
- A visual: partner this with branded graphics to seal the deal.
While these steps are simple, it’s easy for these exercises to go down rabbit holes and lose sight of the target. So it’s a great idea to partner with a mentor or business coach to add experience, fresh eyes, and an objective party to your discussions.
Ready for Growth?
Managing business growth is challenging, especially when you already feel strapped on time and resources. So how do you know which changes will bring the greatest ROI and how many new things to balance at once? That’s where we come in.
Think of us as your partner committed to supporting you from start to finish. That includes discovery, implementing changes, and sticking around to see your business recover. And we’ll still be there in a year or two to help you adapt to new needs and growth!
Let’s start the conversation today, and get your business performing the way you know it can!
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