A value proposition, value prop for short,

is the biggest benefit you can provide to a person or company.

People make three big mistakes around value props.

One, they make it about them,

their company, or their product.

Two, they assume that their idea of their value

prop is the same as what their customers believe.

And three, they mistake the value prop for what they do,

or a feature of their product.

For example, web design is not value it's what you do.

The value is a newly designed website,

how the customer will interact with it,

and how it will improve your rankings in Google,

and get you more site traffic and customers.

A value prop answers three questions.

One, who are you selling to?

Two, what problems does this business or person have?

Three, can you help them with their problem?

If so, how?

Before you have customers,

you need to think critically about the problems you solve and who you solve them for.

As you source prospects,

you should have been asking yourself,

would this person benefit from my product and service?

How? I mentioned earlier that one of

the biggest mistakes salespeople make is leading with a self-serving value prop,

that essentially says, hey I'd love to talk

to you about my amazing software and how it's going to help you.

Don't focus on your product.

Instead, adopt the mindset that the other person doesn't care about you,

and they don't want to give you any money,

but they should talk to you because you can help them solve their problems.

Make the value prop focus on them.

Keep in mind that a value prop is developed and iterated on over time.

As you contact people,

you might find that your assumption of who to sell to is a little bit off.

It turned out that people from a different industry need your product or service,

or your product actually solves a different problem that they have.

Keep track of all the reasons people buy from you in a spreadsheet.

You should include their industry,

their type of company,

their product, what you sold them, and why they bought.

This way, at the end of each month,

you can review these notes and start to see patterns and

what types of companies are buying your product and why.

That will help you re-frame your value proposition.

You might find that you have various types of customers,

and there is a specific value prop for each one.

What’s Your Value Proposition?

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