How Positioning your Value puts YOU ahead of your competitors!
Beat back your rivals and go straight to the very top with this tactic!
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Week 9 out of 10 for the Qualified for Value series! We’ve had 9 editions covering the more practical aspects of this entire Value creation thing and this week, we’re onto something that’ll really get you going!
We’ve been getting into the Value deal from the internal perspective:
first by establishing how it all works,
then figuring out how your internal operations can be supported by incoming Value creation strategies and how they support the Value strategies in kind.
But Value and its creation simply doesn’t exist in an ‘internal only’ bubble. To be able to win out over your competitors, you have to position yourself better than them.
How Value Positioning Works
There’s two considerations at work within successfully positioning the Value you offer:
the first is how the Value you’re offering stacks up against the Value needs of your target client, and the second is how your Value compares against the Value your competitors are offering.
Functionally Value positioning is about talking about, engaging around and strategically placing your Value offering in a way that serves to have the prospects listening to you see YOUR Value offering filling the specific gap that’s plaguing them, rather than your competitors’.
How to Position YOUR Value
To make this work, you’ve got to imagine yourself, your competitor and your prospective client or partner… as 3 chess pieces on a board.
The objective here is to bring your chess piece (your Value offering) closer to the prospect, even better if you can get your chess piece both close to your prospect AND blocking the path to your competitor (essentially eclipsing your competitor).
Ask yourself these questions:
Given what I know about the prospect’s Value needs, HOW does MY Value offering fulfil those needs?
The most important question! The answer to this tells you why your prospect would even look your way!
Consider this the info that puts your piece on the chess board and gives you an idea of how far away it is from your prospect’s piece. Without an understanding of how your offering meets their Value needs, you don’t know how much work you need to put in to position yourself better/closer, or even if your prospect will even hear you out.
Within my Value offering, what already strongly meets their Value needs that I can highlight and leverage? What is missing?
This question build on from the previous one: with what you now know about your offering and how it measures up to your prospect’s Value needs, you can now pick out the most pertinent and appealing parts of your offering to showcase first.
Using our chess metaphor, this is the info about your Value offering that then moves your piece closer to your prospect. The more you have available that’s relevant to highlight that makes your Value offering appeal to them, the more spaces you can move and the faster you can move.
Once again, the objective here is to use your prospect’s Value needs as the point of view from which you examine your offering for the best bits to showcase.
How does my competitor’s Value offering compare?
Now comes the Sun Tzu of it all! You now have to ask the above questions again, but from your competitor’s perspective!
Answering question 1 for them puts their piece on the board, answering question 2 for them tells you how much closer they are to your prospect than you. And it’s VITAL to know how they’re positioned with respect to your client,
because that tells you how much better or worse positioned they are compared to you!
The win condition here is understanding the details of your competitors’ positioning as much as you can, so that you can figure out which aspects of your Value offering that would be valuable to your prospects your can play up to outpace your competitors’.
Don’t just look at it from singular points (so for example from a purely product/service, or operational, or sales “how they are doing better than us” point of view); consider the complete Value each of you offer in its entirety!
Now position yourself!
Using the answers to these questions, you now know what to say to your prospects to win them over to your side!
Essentially, you’ll craft a compelling ‘narrative’ to tell to prospects about your Value offering in a way that is clear, compelling and incorporates their Value needs.
Because you did the considerations, the narrative will also include how your Value offering out-matches your competitors’, without even mentioning them by name!
Value Positioning is among my most favourite things within Value creation and Value Innovation, because it puts to work all the meaty things that are talked about within the workings of Value.
You get to work the dynamics of Value at play respective in your enterprise environment and co-create plans that compellingly position your unique Value and offerings! How cool is that?!
But before you go:
Value Positioning is fun to me, but it might feel a little intimidating for you. Luckily, you have options!
Look no further than the Value Positioning offering in Strategy Facilitation over at Vivre Consulting!
Our Strategy Facilitation consulting offerings are customized to you and your enterprise, tailored for every stage of your enterprise’s development and journey.
Like my work? You can get more of it!
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