WHAT IS A value proposition? It seems like a straightforward question. However, ask any number of sales and marketing executives to define their product's value proposition and often they have a hard time coming up with a clear, concise and compelling message. Sure, they have a number of colourful and dynamic PowerPoint presentations that explain the unique selling point, how the product is different from the competition and the benefit the customer will receive, but this is only part of a value proposition equation. Put simply, a value proposition is the promise that a product makes to a customer that outweighs its total cost. "That outweighs its total cost" is the part of the value proposition that most people overlook. This is important, because many products offer great value, but value is relative to the cost, risk and effort required to make a product useful.
Emotional Self-Management
A LEADING COMPANY held its annual conference to review performance and map out future strategy. During a breakout session on the second day, groups drawn from different departments were given time to brainstorm about an assigned topic, after which they were to give a short presentation summarising their ideas and conclusions. Each group consisted of people of varying levels of seniority in the hope of sparking creativity and stimulating the participants to come up with new perspectives and not just recycle the same old thinking.
Developing a Vision
AN EFFECTIVE LEADER has the ability to present a vision with which team players can connect emotionally. Such a vision is not a business strategy or a five-year plan, but a broader concept that has the power to unite people and rally them around a common cause. Such a vision can be used to define the future, influence interactions between colleagues and inspire employees to higher levels of achievement.
Promoting Your Company
ASK ANY OF your clients why they appointed you. Chances are you will hear words like understanding, trust, compatibility, rapport. The words you probably will not hear are the ones related to your marketing efforts - advertising, website, public relations, press release, newsletters, or seminars. In professional services, clients buy individuals. People buy people. This doesn’t mean that marketing is not important. Quite the contrary, it has a very important role. But this role needs to be clearly defined. Marketing is not about selling your service; it’s about motivating the clients to want to meet with you.
Learning Trends to Watch in 2018
AT SIMITRI, we strive to stay on top of the latest trends impacting our clients. In this post we outline some of the top trends that we have seen in 2017 and that we expect will have a big impact throughout 2018. Our list includes five general observations on learning approaches and also five popular training topics.
Emotional Awareness of Others
SOMETIMES A BOSS has to deliver bad news. It is not part of the job description, but it is part of the job, and the way it is done says a great deal about the leadership style and overall competency of the person in charge. Depending on the organisation and context, what constitutes bad news can be one of many things. It might be about an impending corporate restructuring with anticipated company-wide layoffs, a move to less convenient office premises, or the non-payment of discretionary bonuses. Whatever the case, one thing can make all the difference in gaining acceptance and maintaining staff morale - the way the message is delivered.
When Coaches Communicate
DO NOT BE surprised if you find a sports coach attending your next annual meeting or sales conference. It has become common for leading companies to invite successful coaches to give motivational speeches on leadership. If you think about it, the principles of leadership and team building are the same, whether on the sports field or in the boardroom. The vocabulary – competition, winning tactics, team spirit and motivation – is virtually interchangeable.
Screening Your Best Prospects
IF YOU HAD a blank sheet of paper and the task of developing a list of prospective clients, where would you begin? For most of us, the first step would be to pull out some of the hundreds of name cards collected over the years and select the most likely prospects from among them. If asked to explain why those particular firms were chosen, your answer would probably be that they are big and have potential, have a large budget for professional services, that contact has already been established, or that some business has been done with them in the past.
Know Your Competition
IF YOU ASK any business executive to name a few direct competitors, the chances are they will rattle off at least three or four with no trouble at all. But then ask the same person what differentiates their company from the competition and the answer will usually be far less definite. In reply, you may get an abbreviated version of a standard sales pitch, or a few improvised thoughts inspired by half-remembered figures or a couple of points repeated from a recent management pep talk. The answer, though, will almost certainly contain a large element of wishful thinking based on “what we like to believe”, and not so many verifiable facts that stand up to further scrutiny.
Emotional Decision Making
SOMETHING IS STIRRING in the corporate world as companies finally start to recognise the paradox they have created. On the one hand, they have invested millions in computer-operated voice response systems, reducing customers and business processes to a series of acronyms and numerical codes. On the other, they wonder why clients complain so loudly about impersonal service and the inability to "just talk to someone".