Value Statements Address Prospect Needs

Messaging’s up next in the 12-Point Prospect-Experience Transformation. If you’re reading these posts in order you know we’ve already covered Market. Now that we know WHO are prospects are, it’s time to determine WHAT we want them to know.

It’s tempting to jump right to differentiation—how is your organization better than the competition?

But before we go there it’s necessary to articulate the Value Statement. The Value Statement addresses the market’s pain points. It defines what is it you do to save your prospect’ money, time or otherwise benefit them.

You don't need more leads. You need a better approach to moving prospects through the pipeline.

What you do to meet client needs is your Value Statement, and it’s the 5th point in transforming the prospect experience. The Value Statement tells your prospects what benefits they’ll experience if they buy.

Allow me to use Prospect-Experience’s Value Statement as an example to make the point. Our prospects are B2B marketing and sales leaders with a complex sales process. Their need? To convert more of their prospects to customers. If they engage with us, we’ll optimize their prospect experience—so their sales targets are more likely to convert, so the sales team is more productive—and so the organization accelerates its revenue.

This Value Statement is our promise to our prospects. It’s what makes us attractive to potential buyers of our services.

In many ways the Value Statement is a category statement. While I am not aware of another company that’s in the prospect experience transformation space, I would assume if there was one, that their value statement would be similar to ours.

Let’s draw a parallel from the B2C world to help make the point. Walmart and Amazon are very different companies, but they occupy the same space (they share the same category—and therefore likely have similar Value Statements).

Their Value Statements, simplified, are to be the source for everything. Their prospective customers have a need—to have one place to shop. Both companies meet that need by offering everything from A to Z, and making it easy and convenient.

HOW they do that is what differentiates them. In the case of these retailers, it might be one-day shipping, shop-online-pickup-at-curb, personalized online service, greeters at the door or some combination? In a business-to-business environment, differentiation could include some combination of smarter, faster, better or more cost-effective.

In summary, this post is about the importance of defining your Value Statement. A Value Statement answers the question: What advantages does our company bring to our customers table.

And that is a perfect segue to the next post which is Defendable Differentiators. Articulating what you have that your competitors don’t is the second half of the positioning equation—and a vital part of prospect experience transformation. Please stay tuned—or reach out to weigh in.