Value, much like beauty, is in the eye of the prospect. A value propositions is a valuable tool for a marketing professional. It helps define what a product or service is bringing to the market and how they plan to differentiate their product from others in the marketplace. But salespeople often misuse the value proposition. They use it to answer the question “why should I buy from you”? Most of the time that question is not asked explicitly, but salespeople craft their presentations around how to answer it anyway with the value proposition as the center piece of the answer. They say things like “this product is a good value”, or “This service offers our best value.” Statements like that ignore the most basic tenet in sales. A product only has value to the prospect if it solves a problem or fulfills a need or desire for the prospect. If I hate a sunroof in a car because I worry about leaking, the fact that it gets added free is not a value for me. It actually may detract from the value, not add to it.
You should use the value proposition the marketing people give you as a starting point. You should determine what problem each of the features or purported value is designed to solve. You should not view them as selling points yet. Because you do not know if any of those features solves a problem or makes the product more or less attractive to any particular prospect. You now have a list of problems (or desires) that your product or service addresses. Your next task is to get in front of prospects and ask if they have any of those problems. Once your conversation with the prospect has yielded some problems that your service solves and they have enough money to solve them, you can tell the prospect about the feature or benefit. Let the prospect tell you whether they believe your solution has value. Leave the words “value” or “value proposition” out of your sales presentations.
Value propositions are important weapons in your sales arsenal. But they are only worth anything if you use them properly and they definitely don’t belong in your sales presentation. Their best use is to help you prepare the questions to ask the prospect.
