Value Proposition Osmosis- where business and biology meet

by admin on February 13, 2012

Osmosis – such a lovely word. It is one of my favourite words, I like the idea of ‘osmosing’ and although the word doesn’t exist in the English language, it should!

As the poor sod responsible for driving sales in my business, I have often talked (much to the amusement of the Oxbridge smartasses in the team) about ‘osmosing’ the Value Proposition (for a more thoughtful article, see here) culture into my team.  And by that, I simply mean that it’s so well absorbed that my irreverent fee earners use the idea of ‘value’ in everything they do for their clients.

For me, a Value Proposition has two forms:

  1. Static – a general statement that describes the Company and sets out in general terms what we stand for, what we deliver and why you should hire us…; and
  2. …a state of being!

OK, I hear you say, that’s very zen of you – what the hell do you mean?

What I mean is this: every time people in my team talk about a client centred issue; whether it is a project, a proposal, any conversation, they are thinking about our Value Proposition, even if they don’t know it. And if they are thinking ‘Value’ then they’re on the right track.

Recently – after some workshops on our Value Proposition, a member of my team submitted a proposal on a publicly tendered piece of work.  The client came back and told us that he wanted to work with us; we needed to negotiate the price a little because we were twice the price of the cheapest bid but the proposal had persuaded the client that, even with some trimming of the scope, we were the consultant of choice.

The project is ours for the taking and just like parenting you need to reinforce good behaviour so everyone in my business knows this has happened, and I suspect it will happen again. You should all read 5 steps to writing a great proposal (see here) but unless you think about your Value Proposition to the point when it oozes (or ‘osmoses’) from your pores – the other steps won’t be as effective.

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