Developing a Solutions Focus to Add Customer Value III: Getting the Value Proposition Right

My blog posts Developing a Solutions Focus to Add Customer Value I and II ("What Are Solutions, Exactly?") get more views than anything else I post—no matter how hard I try to come up with new and interesting topics. And it doesn’t seem to matter that they are buried in the taxonomy of this site. So clearly there is further need to dissect this topic and find ways to help.

In the beginning I suggested that in order to do “solutions selling” well, you need to know:

1. What outcome does this product or service produce?

2. What benefit will the buyer receive?

3. How might it support the buyer’s needs, wishes, aspirations, pain points?

4. Why is this so?

Assuming that you have done this work (and here again is the worksheet), you will be in pretty good stead once you get in the door. But what will get you in the door, exactly?

The context in which you place your product  or service is the essence of the value proposition. The traditional definition, from Wikipedia, is this:

“… a promise of value to be delivered, and a belief from the customer that value will be experienced.” 

The promise of value comes not only from words, and not only from your words. How the organization interacts with customers also plays a part in building (or destroying) the value proposition. Of course, reputation built over time has direct bearing on the “promise” as well as on the “belief.”

Even more than that, though, the promise of value comes from how you place yourself in the customer’s understanding of the problem you are helping to solve. This is a choice you make at the outset, and one you must keep making as your product or service evolves, and as your market evolves.

It’s not a coincidence that “storytelling” and “narrative” have found their way into the lexicon of business. You don’t have to be a great storyteller to create and sell solutions, but you do have to be able to tell a great story. You need to be able to place your solution in some bigger plan; to be able to articulate what the internal and external forces are that have brought you and the customer together in this moment.

For example, if the primary motivation for your prospect is competitive advantage, go beyond “your competition is thinking this way and you should be too” to “the world is changing thus, and the response to this change appears to be this, and a potential response is that, and here’s how we think about it and how we can be useful to you.” 

Take the time to think about this! Most of us know the “thus” and the “this” and the “that,” but not so many of us step back and try to articulate it. Once you do, you are magically transformed into more than a vendor. You’re an expert, a trusted advisor. A solutions seller.

And then you can proceed and discuss your solution, the outcomes it produces, and all the rest. 

In the first of this series I wrote, “The better prepared you are to articulate these outcomes, and their benefits, the more effective you will be as a marketer or salesperson.” The preparation comes from knowing exactly why you are there in the first place.