Rearticulating your value proposition: How to pivot in your marketplace
Today’s professional world has evolved significantly. Your clients may not fully understand the challenges facing them. They’re likely to be under resourcing pressure. And they can be prone to decision paralysis as the world keeps changing around them.
In a marketplace like this, how do you reassure clients? How do you become a non-negotiable, go-to, strategic partner? How do you communicate what you do – and the value of investing in your services? And importantly, will you need to pivot your positioning and messaging to achieve this?
This hub shares the strategic approaches we deploy to empower organisations like these to achieve pivots large and small…
Added complexity: Articulating value in people-delivered businesses
In these sectors, pivoting means bringing your people on a journey with you…
- Professional services
- Wealth management and investment
- Customer services
- Education and training
- Service-driven organisations
Deal with the complexity of change in people-delivered organisations: Download our guide
To reposition a service line – or whole company – you need to bring your people on the journey. This means the work of articulating your value won’t follow a straight line from strategy to implementation. You’ll also need to factor in a robust stakeholder engagement and management workstream – even in relatively small projects.
Why? Because when your people deliver your organisation’s value, they are your product. And pivoting your offer means getting them not just to embrace change – but to be the change.
Download our guide: Serious Stakeholder Management to get a heads-up on what to expect – and how to get your colleagues motivated, involved and on board.
Complete the form to download the guide.
Value proposition development – further insight
We’ve been helping people-driven organisations to refine and completely reposition their offers for many years. And as the business environment continues to change at pace, we’re helping ever more organisations than ever before to tell a different story about themselves. You can find some of our thinking on value proposition development over on LinkedIn. Let us know what you think in the comments…
Ready to pivot?
If you need to bring about sustainable change in a people-delivered business, call us. We’re here to articulate your differentiating story, bring your people on the journey – and provide you with a platform for resilience and growth.
Value proposition FAQs
What is a value proposition?
A value proposition is a top-level articulation of what your organisation does, what makes it different and better to competitor offers – and how it’s delivered. A brilliant value proposition is clear, interesting and inspiring. Internally, it should balance aspiration and credibility – because you want to motivate teams to innovate and reach higher… but you don’t want to pretend to be something you’re not, or can’t become. Externally, it should easily show how your offer solves pressing client challenges – and helps them to reach their goals.
What’s the difference between a value proposition and positioning?
If you’re a purist, then a value proposition is the expression of your value to a customer. Positioning, on the other hand, is an articulation of the position you occupy in your marketplace, in comparison to your competitors. However, at Wordtree, we treat the two terms interchangeably. This is because we don’t think you can articulate the value of an offer without knowing what makes it a better choice for customers and clients. We also believe that for positioning to be practical, it needs to be expressed in clear, systematic, benefits-driven messaging.
What we find is that “positioning” tends to be used as a term more in product-led organisations where design forms a large part of brand identity. “Value proposition” on the other hand, tends to be used in organisations where products and services are intangible, and design is a less important factor than narrative.
What is stakeholder management?
Stakeholder management and engagement is the active, planned process of involving interested parties in a project or activity. So for example, if you want to launch a new service in your organisation, your stakeholders are going to be all the people who either know something that will help you build it – or people who will be affected by it. These stakeholders could include subject matter experts, budget holders, compliance colleagues, customers and suppliers. Download our guide: Serious Stakeholder Management to find out more.
Why is stakeholder management more important in people-delivered businesses?
If you want to introduce change, it’s always sensible to involve colleagues in the journey. However, in businesses which sell expertise and human contact, stakeholder management isn’t a nice-to-have. Without it, your initiative will fail.
This is because in these types of businesses – sectors like professional services, education and customer service – the product is the people. So you don’t just need to get colleagues to embrace change. You need them to be the change.
You won’t achieve this simply by telling people to change. You need to bring them on a journey that persuades and inspires people to transition to a new way of working. Because remember, that way of working is your product.
Find out more – download our guide: Serious Stakeholder Management
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