Your unique value proposition is the reason people will consider engaging with you, and when there is a choice, you, rather than the other options.
The clearer you are about the focus of your expertise, and the value it delivers, the easier it will be to attract customers/clients, and therefore, monetise it.
What single thing do you deliver to customers for which they will pay?
Complete this sentence: I use my expertise to assist people to ……………………………….
This forces you to distil your expertise down into one simple sentence that defines your value proposition.
You must be specific, avoid cliches and generalities such as ‘improve performance’, ‘be better’ and ‘deliver value’
In my case, the sentence is not ‘I use my expertise to improve business performance’. Instead, my sentence is; ‘I use my expertise to help people grow and build profitability.’ Depending on who I am talking to, I substitute the word ‘people’ with ‘SME manufacturers’ or even more specifically ‘suppliers of widgets’.
What differentiates you from other experts in the field?
What you deliver, and the manner of delivery must be different in some way from alternatives. The differentiator is what engages potential customers to you rather than to someone else. Therefore, ‘Better’ or ‘Bigger’ is not sufficient, they are generic claims that anyone can make.
These points of difference do not make you the right choice for everybody, it makes you the perfect choice for a very few, or at any point in time, just one person. When you are their only choice, where else will they go?
In my case, the differentiator is long experience, and success across corporate, government, and SME businesses. I have an unusual combination of expertise across strategy development and implementation, marketing, accounting, and operations management. While I am primarily a strategic marketer, having run manufacturing businesses, and having deep knowledge of ‘the numbers’ and how to interpret and use them, makes me unusual. This can be valuable to modest sized businesses that tend to have areas of weakness in management expertise outside their core skill.
Who needs what you deliver?
Those that are actively seeking it. There are often many people who might need what you deliver, but those who are actively seeking it are the only ones who will see it when it is presented to them. For example, a tax accountant can help anyone who needs an accountant, but their ideal customer is someone actively seeking advice on tax, today.
How will your expertise benefit your customers?
When you buy something, you expect a beneficial outcome, something that eases the pain, scratches the itch, solves a problem, or just makes you feel better.
Another sentence to be completed from the perspective of the ideal customer.
Those who use my expertise go from …… to…..
Again, in my case, the sentence is ‘Those who use my expertise go from frenetic activity that seems to go nowhere, to developing and deploying strategies that deliver sustainable profitability’
How do you best connect with, and deliver value to your potential customers?
This is the million-dollar question, and one that should be always left until all the above has been done, at least in some sort of draft. The answer to the question is hiding in the answers to the previous ones you have asked yourself, and the choices you have made as a result.
The choices about how you do this are myriad, which is what makes it so tough. There are many ways to set about communicating and engaging with potential customers. You must make choices, which will miss many potential customers, but will optimise the expenditure of your resources of time and money in connecting with those who are most likely to value and pay for your expertise.
Now you have me thinking.
Good!
The conditions you treat are a symptom of deeper drives, you help clients understand that, but you do not communicate it more widely.