subject: Define The Value Proposition When Developing Sales Strategy [print this page] Every sales strategy has many moving partsEvery sales strategy has many moving parts. A business can likely have many different sales resources, sales organizations, a portfolio of products and services, a slew of features and benefits, different types of clients that they do business with, etc. With all of that factored in, it can often be overwhelming when working on developing sales strategy. With so much to factor in, a good place to start when working on refining the sales strategy is defining the value proposition.
Value Proposition Defined
In order to identify what your value proposition is, it may be helpful to define the term value proposition. One way that the value proposition can get misconstrued is by having it get intermingled with the features and benefits that are a business offers. While those certainly impact the value proposition, the features and benefits are at a lower and more technical level when looking at how a business delivers value to its clients.
The features that are offered will provide or enable some sort of action. And that action will yield some sort of purpose or benefit to the client. But it is adding all of those benefits up and bringing to a higher level to identify the business value that is gong to bring to the client is when you will begin to arrive at your value proposition.
Foundation for All Sales Messaging
One of the reasons it can be beneficial to start developing sales strategy with the value proposition definition is that the value proposition can be the foundation that all sales messaging is built on. Whether it is website content, marketing brochures, email campaigns, cold calling scripts, sales presentations, etc., all customer facing materials and should trace back to the value proposition definition in an effective sales strategy.
By starting with the value proposition first and then building out all documents, deliverables, and communications, the sales messaging will all be more aligned, consistent, and clear.
Define the Target Market
Another reason to begin developing sales strategy with focusing on the value proposition definition is that it will help to define the target market. One of the keys to an effective sales strategy is to clearly know who your ideal prospect is. Your ideal prospect is the prospect that you fit with best and can help the most.
By clearly understanding how you help your clients from a business standpoint, you will be better positioned to clearly identify the prospects that you should go after and this will help with developing sales strategy that is more focused on an the area that will produce the best results.
Without Defining the Value Proposition
The risk of not starting with a value proposition when developing sales strategy is that the messaging can not only be inconsistent, but it can also not focus on the key messages that need to be hit on by the sales force. The end result could be not as tight sales execution resulting in lost deals when going head-to-head with fierce competition.
