When the true value you offer, is not appreciated by your customers, prospects, investors, employees, and other stakeholders.

Please allow me to explain what this means:

If you have worked hard to build your business, you want and need the people who matter to appreciate what you do for them.

Specifically, this means that they ‘appreciate the value’ they get from you. It also means that you ‘appreciate the value’ you get from them. It is a two-way thing.

The ‘people who matter’ to your business are your stakeholders, which for most businesses include your: employees, existing customers, prospective new customers, suppliers, investors, regulators, and others. If these people ‘don’t get’ what you do for them then you potentially can have a lot of problems. Customers may reduce and even stop their spending with you. Your best employees may become demotivated and leave. Suppliers may prefer to offer their best deals and support to your rivals. Your investors may lack confidence and withdraw their funding and other support. Regulators may challenge your processes.

When I talk about the need to be appreciated for your ‘true value,’ what I mean is first being aware of the value you actually deliver to and receive from each of these stakeholder groups, and then secondly finding ways to ensure that this value is communicated.

Reaching this point of mutual appreciation and respect doesn’t just happen. It requires a dedicated approach on an ongoing basis.

Stakeholders

Markets

Competitors

Strategies

Products

Services

A multi-stakeholder approach is required

Quite often ‘value propositions’ are produced with one goal in mind. To increase sales. So the aim of the value proposition is to give buyers (existing customers and new prospective customers) a compelling reason why they should buy from you.

Knowing where our company fits within the market and ensuring that we have products and services which have been developed with customers in mind is key.

Buyers are however just one stakeholder group and so just focusing on buyers is in my opinion, not enough.

We also need to appreciate the value of other groups including our:

• employees
• suppliers
• investors

To do all this well, we also need to have a strong understanding of both our strategies and our markets and where they are headed.

This is an interesting mix of a project which requires expertise, experience and a determined approach. Not all companies have these resources in-house. In such situations, I can make a difference.

…so that your true value is appreciated

You are a stronger business if you are:

• Retaining and growing a profitable customer base
• Attracting profitable new business
• Retaining and developing your best employees
• Attracting really good new candidates for jobs
• Building unique partnerships which benefit both parties
• Retaining and attracting new investment
• Able to choose alternative positive strategies

You are a more resilient business if you are able to:

• Get through the difficult times
• Approach the future with a positive new focus and determination
• Gain traction with your strategies and move forward

Value Propositions are about why people should buy from you. They are also about why people should work for you, invest in your firm, supply your company and more…

Great value propositions are based on real and in-depth understanding of your business and the true value your firm offers to your various stakeholders. It is common to find companies both overestimating and underestimating the real value which they provide to different stakeholders. Very often, the exercise has never been done. When was the last time you spent time reviewing the value you provide to your customers, employees, management team, suppliers, and investors?