Why Does Your Customer Buy from You? The Value Proposition Design

Ed Mayuga – January 25, 2017

You are marketing and business development professionals from

architectural, engineering, planning firms

When was the last time you took a systematic look at how you customers experience your product or service?

Visually illustrates data you want to analyze

A basic understanding of the Value

Proposition Design

Think about why your customers buy from you

What is Value Proposition Design?

A tool that will help you design, test, build, and manage great customer

value propositions

The Customer Segment who you intend to create value for

The map shows the FIT between what you offer, and what the customers

want

The Customer Segment Profile explains their characteristics and desired outcomes and benefits

Some outcomes and benefits may be more relevant to customers

If you don’t have a fit, you need to change your approach

The Circle contains Customer Characteristics of What You Can OBSERVE in the Market

Customer Jobs – Tasks to complete, problems to solve, needs to satisfy

Pains – Anything that annoys your customers before, during, or after

getting a job done

Gains – outcomes your customers require, expect, desire, or would be surprised by

The Square – The Features of What you Market and Sell

How do you DESIGN the Features and Benefits of your Products or Services?

What you communicate to your customers is summarized in your Value Proposition

It is the bundle of products and services

that help your customer get a job

done

Allows to you address your customer’s Pains and Gains

Let’s take a deeper look at Pain Relievers

Ask yourself: How do your products or services alleviate customer pains?

Expand your thinking to

before, while, and after a customer is

attempting to get a job done

Can you accurately say which Pains the Value Proposition is addressing by eliminating or reducing them?

Now let’s look at the Gain Creators

What are the positive benefits your products and services create for your

customers?

Are you clearly communicating the Gains that your Value Proposition is addressing?

Customers will buy more the better you are at communicating positive

outcomes

Gain Creators

The Problem-Solution Fit

When Features perfectly match the characteristics of your customer segment

profiles

Product-Market Fit - When the market validates and you have traction with your customers

There does not have to be an absolute 1-to-1 correlation, but they need to

closely match

Pain Relievers are Features

Gain Creators are Benefits

Traditional Feature/Benefit selling is “Because of… You can…”

Are there Pain Relievers that you can use as Features for your sales pitch?

Are there Gain Creators you can use as Benefits?

Successful businesses have more than just a great Value Proposition

Successful businesses also have a great Business Model that makes a Value

Proposition possible!

You need to periodically test your assumptions using the Value

Proposition Design map

Remember: There are no facts inside the four walls of your office!

Your Value Proposition should be communicated on your website, social media, marketing and sales materials