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How to Choose a Value Proposition
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| Guest post by: John Brennan |
Article Overview: What sets your product, service and company apart from your competitors? What value do you provide and how is it different than the alternatives? Your value proposition is the foundation of your entire business and the offers you take to market. When your market clearly recognizes (and appreciates!) the value you provide, it’s easier to generate new prospects and guide them to buy. Now … what if you don't have a clear value proposition? Well, it takes more time and money to show prospects why they should choose you. And as a result, you often end up competing on price – a tough position to sustain over the long term.
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How to Choose a Value Proposition
So how do you define a value proposition? First, there are three essential types of value:
- Operational excellence
- Product leadership
- Customer intimacy
Which of these scenarios best describes your company and offerings?
Operational excellence
- Your customers just want a good product at the lowest possible price. New bells and whistles aren't particularly important - it's price that counts.
- You're not trying to come up with new or better products; you just want to produce more volume at a lower cost.
- You focus on creating operational efficiencies to keep your costs low.
Product leadership
- Your customers care most about the product itself - they want the best. Period.
- Your team and company culture is completely dedicated to innovation and quality.
- You're constantly working on improvements and innovations that you can bring to market.
- You know what your competitors are doing and are completely focused on staying one step ahead in order to capture a greater share of your market.
Customer intimacy
- Your market is flooded with products or services like yours at all ends of the price spectrum. But your customers want more than a standard product or program; they want customized solutions.
- Your mission is to know as much as possible about your customers' businesses and build successful relationships so you can deliver the correct products, services and/or solutions over time.
- You know you can't just say "We offer great service."Instead, your teamjust does it --inevery interaction they have with prospects and customers.
Prioritize & focus
As a company, you should be able to do one of these three things very well. You can probably tack on a secondary value proposition and do it fairly well. But it's nearly impossible to do all three.
Once you've selected a primary and secondary value proposition, you can narrow in on a more specific benefits in your offerings - for example, a particular TYPE of product leadership or customer intimacy that fills a need in your market in a unique way.
As you're going through this process, think impartially about the wants and needs of your customers and what your competition offers. You may find an unmet need in the market, or you may realize that you need to find a better way to differentiate from your competitors.
As a result, you may decide to promote a different attribute of your product, or you may find entirely new opportunities to create new products and services. Either way, you'll strengthen your business in both the short and long term.
And what should you do after you've defined your value proposition? Create a brand strategy to support it.
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Article Tags: bells and whistles, choose one, company culture, customer intimacy, customized solutions, improvements, innovations, li li, lowest possible price, nbsp, offerings, ol type, operational efficiencies, operational excellence, price spectrum, product leadership, scenarios, successful relationships, value proposition, what your competitors
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About the Author: John Brennan RSS for John's articles - Visit John's website John Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. Click here to visit John's website Internet Marketing Campaigns Measure Customer Loyalty Campaigns to Customers Webinar Plan |
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