Positioning Your Unique Value Propositions
Understanding why your clients buy from you is critical in distinguishing yourself from your competitors. But knowing when and how to position yourself is equally as important. Nobody wants to be sold to as soon as they indicate the need for a product or service. Instead, they want the opportunity to discuss their problem so they feel heard and understood. And for many small business owners who care about helping their customers, they welcome the chance to learn more. Because when you take the time to listen, you learn how you can genuinely help, which is likely why you started your business in the first place.
As a successful business owner, you probably have multiple value propositions. We recommend narrowing it down to three that are very distinct and help potential customers understand how you’re different from your competitors.
When to Address Your Unique Value Propositions
Many business owners bring up their unique value propositions too early in their sales story. They begin “selling” as soon as their potential customer indicates a need for their product or service. Resist the temptation to pitch yourself before you have a good understanding of what your potential customer truly needs. Instead, take the time to sit back and listen to them discuss their concerns, so you know which of your unique value propositions matter most. Once you understand what’s most important, you can position your product or service more successfully by offering them the right solution to resolve their specific problem.
Let’s look at an example: Financial investing can be complicated, which is why many people decide to work with an advisor. But choosing the right advisor can be challenging. To win my business, an advisor needs to listen to my concerns BEFORE they can start successfully selling their services. Perhaps I’m afraid of working with an advisor who gets paid for every transaction he makes on my behalf because I assume he’ll take advantage of me and overtrade just to make a few extra dollars. Instead, I’d rather work with the advisor who’s paid based on the performance of my investments. Unfortunately, the advisor who sells his services before genuinely understanding my greatest concerns misses the opportunity to connect with me. And when we don’t connect, it’s hard to move the sale forward.
How To Position Your Unique Value Proposition
Listening to your past and current customers’ feedback through questionnaires and testimonials will provide you with a clear idea of why they decided to buy from you. We don’t recommend positioning yourself as the “best” or the “cheapest,” as both of these reasons can backfire.
Claiming to be the best is often subjective and rarely based on empirical evidence. Data is seldom absolute as it can be cut and interpreted in many ways. Additionally, receiving one negative online review – and let’s face it, negative reviews happen – can quickly convince potential customers that you aren’t, in fact, the best.
And positioning yourself as the lowest price only works when you are, in fact, the lowest price. It just takes one competitor to price themselves lower than you, and it quickly becomes a race to the bottom. And customers who are making their buying decisions based solely on price aren’t loyal and are often some of the hardest ones to please.
Focus on creating unique value propositions based on traits that matter to your customers:
· Experience
· Good communication
· Reliability
· Honesty and integrity (though this can be harder to prove)
· Responsiveness
Never underestimate good human qualities as also being good business qualities. In the end, your ideal customer wants to hire someone who will do what they say they will do and will make their problem go away. It’s incredible how often the little things can make a big difference.
