“It’s for dog owners. A tool to help their pets exercise,” said Alba.
“It’s for families who like camping. A skewer for toasting marshmallows on the fire,” said David.
“It’s for workshop facilitators. A pointer for presenting and for keeping order,” followed Ceara.
“It’s for us all. An inspirational lever for creating change”, said Tim, inspired by the words of Archimedes. Everyone in the room leaned forward, engaged.
It was a simple opening exercise. We were showing the team a picture of a stick with the prompts ‘what is this?’, ‘who is it for?’ and ‘what does it do for them’? In just a few minutes the room had arrived at 13 distinct value propositions for the humble stick. It was a metaphor, helping to shed light on the insights we needed to gather and what we needed to do with them.
Over the past months this leadership team had crafted a new company vision, defined the priority actions to make it happen, and built the road map to drive sustainable commercial growth. They had the ‘why’ and the ‘how’. The goal of this workshop was to articulate the ‘what’ – the company’s value proposition.
A value proposition is a simple, pragmatic statement that summarises a company’s offer and why customers should choose their services. The essence of any great VP is a deep understanding of your audience (who you’re for) and the company’s distinctive offering (what you do for them).
After this simple opening exercise, we defined pen portraits for the key customers of the brand, exploring their needs and desires, their pains and gains, and their most loved brands. We prioritised the company’s distinctive offerings by evaluating their fit to the customers’ needs. We scrutinised today and tomorrow: what are we best at now? What should we improve for the future?
Armed with these insights, the team were ready to craft their VP. A simple template would give them structure and direction. The team left with a clear and compelling definition of ‘what’ they offered, perfectly connected to their ‘how’ and their ‘why’.
If you’re looking to define your company’s value proposition, it might help to start with a stick. Who is it for, and what does it do for them?
