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“BUSINESS INSIGHTS”
An
Occasional Newsletter
to
our Clients, Readers, and Friends
The Battle
for Customers
Do your employees,
all of
your employees, know what makes your company fundamentally
different from all of your competitors? Can you tell me in
30 seconds why I should buy from you over your competition?
Don't read any farther until you do this.
How did you do?
Here's another test. Ask 5 to 20 of your
employees to explain why a customer should buy from your
company rather than the competition – do they know your
company's Value Proposition? How many different answers did
you get? It is probably somewhere between 5 and 20 answers.
Most people can’t explain what their company does – they
don’t know or can’t articulate the company’s Value
Proposition.
Why can't your employees do this after
all the training they have been through? Haven't they been
told, haven’t they seen it in the company newsletter many
times over?
The Value
Proposition clearly and concisely describes what you do by
answering these three important questions:
1. What product
or service does your company sell?
2. What product or service does your company sell?
3. Who is your target customer for this product or service?
4. What makes your offering
unique and different?
A Value Proposition is a clear,
compelling and credible expression of the experience that a
customer will receive from your value-creating offering. The
way ti achieve this is by aligning all your resources to
deliver your value proposition - the difference between just
saying what you're going to do and actually doing it.
Your Value Proposition provides a
statement of business strategy; more specifically, a
statement of how your business uses all its resources to
deliver superior value to its customers, profitably.
Your Value Proposition should be validated on a
regular basis (yearly), using multiple market research
techniques (surveys, focus groups, personal interviews,
observation, etc.) to ensure that the information collected
reflects the customers’ shifting needs with continuing
accuracy.
Don’t confuse the
Value Proposition and Unique Selling Proposition (USP); they
are not the same thing, but they do need to fit together.
Think of the Value Proposition as a competitive strategy
term which explains the basis for how your company plans to
win in a chosen market by adding value to the customer over
and above the price the customer pays. A USP, in contrast,
is a direct message to a targeted group of prospects and
customers that explains what and why they should buy from
you.
You need to ensure that all your
employees understand the benefit your company is trying to
deliver to its customers, and
what makes you different
from your competitors. And they must be able to
talk about
that difference in a meaningful way – using the customer’s
language. All employees must know the words to use, how to
get your customers involved in understanding
how you are
fundamentally different from your competitors,
why they should
buy your products
and services
and most importantly,
why they should
stay loyal for life.
Lastly, provide your employees with the
tools needed to properly do their job. Take advantage of
new-hire and recurring product and service training,
company, divisional or regional meetings to invest in the
on-going development of your people and help them succeed.
Their success in this arena is critical to
your success.
I’ve worked with companies who invest a great deal in their
employees and others who spend a bare minimum. The
difference in their overall results is always significant.
Today’s business environment is more
challenging and competitive than ever before. That means all
your employees need to be able to give your customers a
clear and compelling reason to do business with
you rather than
someone else. Communicating
that message is a critical priority for any effective
business, from an entrepreneurial upstart to a Fortune 500
company. If your own people do not believe in it and cannot
consistently articulate it, what are the chances that
customers will get it?
The purpose of an enterprise
is to create and keep a customer.
About
the Author: Ken Wilson:
Strategist,
marketing guru, educator, facilitator, author,
university lecturer and consultant, he
can be reached at
ken@wmg-mn.com
or 763-476-2216