A kick-arse value proposition is what makes you stand out from competitors and helps your future customers have a fantastic experience with you from the start.

It is not about the one-liner on your website here, I mean the complete experience your customers get from beginning to end. How they find your product, convert and experience your business is all a part of your value proposition

All businesses need it, all want it, yet many don’t get it right. Designing one can actually be a bit tricky, and even seasoned veterans need some external input to create theirs.

The answer to designing a value proposition is in the word design, and this is where most people fail.

The design here stands for crafting, and it is best done with the end user/ customer in mind (we often think we do this, but in reality, we don’t or could do it better).

In order to redesign our value proposition, we first need to understand our customers thoroughly (I know I dwell on this point non-stop but it doesn’t matter whether you design new product features, source a new line of product or redesign your marketing strategy, all need to keep in mind who it is actually intended for). The better you understand your customers, the more rewarded you will be for getting it right.

One of the clear parts for knowing your customers better is in knowing the demographics, but the trick to understanding your customers lies deeper than this.

How familiar are you with their behaviours? Could you tell me about a typical day in their life? And even better, do you know about their needs and goals daily?

Imagine selling to medium sized companies (and no, medium-sized companies aren’t your customers… it is the people who work there). Imagine your meeting evolving around their daily issues and how you can help them achieve their goals. If you understand their daily struggles and how you could solve them, the product doesn’t need to be sold anymore.

I have helped many companies go through the process of designing their value propositions, and it always comes down to how well you actually understand the people you create it for.

To help you make a start in understanding your customers, I have shared some key points on how you can create a persona of your customer segments that in turn will help you craft a value proposition that makes competitors envious ;-)