Value Proposition Development

What is a value proposition? A value proposition, or value prop as it's often called in the corporate world, serves a few purposes:

• Serves as the "rails" of your business as a whole by answering things like what's the most important, what we can do for our customers, how and why we do it better than anyone else, and the benefit to customers of using our product or service
• Articulating the value you can provide on a specific project for a client (this can be used in sales pitches)
• Helps when innovating and brainstorming new sales pitches to current clients

Value Proposition Examples and Case Studies

Below are some examples and case studies of work I have done with value propositions:

Simplifying a Complex Process

I once worked with a client developing training content. One of my firm's overall value propositions as a brand was to look for ways to provide value - to point out opportunities that benefit the client by making their lives easier, but in a way that gave us more billable projects. I sat with a client reviewing some technical writing, and the client expressed a desire for for an "aerial view" of a highly complex process her department used on a daily basis, because it was so complex it was nearly impossible to share with someone new to the department.

So we worked together to build a visual process map - think one of those decision tree-type charts, only with pictures. The chart gave a great visual aid to trainees, and each step had a link built in so that viewers could click to see the details and training for each step.

This provided immense value to our client, because her job was now greatly simplified - but it also helped me to provide additional sales to my firm!

Contact me TODAY and we can build a value proposition for your business that will help you gain and keep clients!

A Client Stuck in the Past

The other day, I talked with someone whose business is online ticket sales. He expressed concern over his client refusing to move their ticket sales online due to a decades-long partnership with a large brick-and-mortar retail chain.

What kind of value proposition could this ticketing business use to win their client over to online ticket sales (and thereby drastically increasing the number of tickets sold online)?

First, we should dig deep into the client's relationship with the brick-and-mortar retailer. Is the client afraid to "rock the boat" because the retailer sells so many of the client's products? Is the client simply stuck in the past because they've pictured customers going to that retailer's stores to buy tickets for 40 years?

Once we know the root cause of the client's reasoning, we can respond properly. If the client wants to make sure not to damage the relationship with its customer, the retailer, we can come up with an alternative way to incorporate the retailer at the event. For example, move the ticket sales online, but build a photo booth featuring the retailer's logo as a sponsor and a social media hashtag that the public will very likely use as they post photos of their family at the event, for free brand exposure.

If the client is simply feeling nostalgic, we can point out the pros of moving sales online (customer convenience, opportunities for social media interaction, increase in ticket sales) and still honor the "feel" of going into the retailer and buying tickets by keeping it as an option for customers.

More Consulting Areas

Value proposition strategy often goes hand-in-hand with other dynamics of business. Learn more about the other areas where I can help: