Value Proposition Development

Stop guessing your growth path. Map it instead with the Lean Canvas model. Last year a client was losing cash after a bad investment. Their Board wanted a clear plan, but management's ideas were scattered. Pressure rose as their cash runway shrank. I used a blank Lean Canvas and met with management. Box by box, we turned fuzzy thoughts into clear statements. In a few hours, the team could see the whole business on one page. A week later, decisions sped up, waste was cut, and revenue began increasing. The Board praised the new focus because just one sheet had replaced weeks of endless slides. 1. Start with the Problem box because pain fuels purchase: ⇀ List the top three headaches your market hates. ⇀ Ask customers for blunt complaints. ⇀ Rank pains by urgency and frequency.  ⇀ If the pain is weak, the plan is weak. 2. Name the Customer Segments who wake up with that pain: ⇀ Avoid lumping everyone together - be precise. ⇀ Describe one real person, not a demographic blur. ⇀ Note where they already search for help. ⇀ Specific faces drive focused solutions. 3. Your Unique Value Proposition attracts attention: ⇀ Write it like a headline your customer would repeat. ⇀ Highlight the biggest outcome, not features. ⇀ Short, clear value wins the click. ⇀ Keep it under ten words. 4. Now sketch your Solution: ⇀ Draft three bare-bones features solving each top pain. ⇀ Mockup screens or sketches quickly. ⇀ Show them to five prospects tomorrow. ⇀ Speed beats perfection in early design. 5. Channels tell you how messages travel to wallets: ⇀ Pick the two cheapest tests before buying ads. ⇀ Leverage existing communities and email lists. ⇀ Measure response time and cost per lead. ⇀ Cheap learning outruns expensive guessing. 6. Revenue Streams prove the idea can feed itself: ⇀ State exactly who pays, how much, and how often. ⇀ Compare price to the pain’s current cost. ⇀ Pilot a single pricing tier first. ⇀ Real cash beats hypothetical guesses. 7. Analyse Cost Structure for sustainability: ⇀ List the three largest costs and make them variable. ⇀ Negotiate monthly, not annual, contracts. ⇀ Lean costs preserve runway for learning. ⇀ Automate before hiring. 8. Key Metrics keep founders honest on progress: ⇀ Choose one north-star metric and two support numbers. ⇀ Link each metric to habit or revenue. ⇀ Track weekly in one simple dashboard. ⇀ What gets graphed gets fixed faster. 9. Finally, name your Unfair Advantage: ⇀ This is the asset rivals can’t match. ⇀ Lean on unique data, patents, or proven community. ⇀ Document founder expertise that speed cannot buy. ⇀ Without moats, margins leak. 10. Don't forget to summarise your high-level concept and identify early adopters too. Review our lean canvas model weekly to stay on track with your strategy. What's your favourite strategic model? ------- ♻️ Repost to help others in your network. Follow Jonathan Maharaj FCPA for more insights on accounting, finance and leadership.

If I had to start my 6-figure business, this would have been my first few steps (with a real example at the end) - Step 1: Identify Your Unique Value Implementation: - Complete a "Before & After" grid: List what clients experience before working with you (pain points) and after (benefits) - Use the "So What?" test: For each feature you offer, ask "so what?" until you reach the true benefit - Tools: Miro for visual mapping, Google Forms to survey past clients about what they valued most Step 2: Analyze Your Competition - Create a simple competitor matrix: List 5 competitors across the top, key service features down the side, mark what each offers - Highlight pricing, deliverables, timelines, and guarantees to find underserved areas - Tools: Ahrefs for keyword research on competitors, notion for tracking competitive intelligence Step 3: Define Your Ideal Client - Draft a "Day in the Life" scenario for your ideal client, focusing on their challenges and objectives - Plot clients on a 2x2 matrix: "Easy to Work With" vs. "Profitable" to identify patterns in your best clients - Tools: Make Persona for creating client avatars, LinkedIn Sales Navigator for researching prospect profiles Step 4: Craft Your Offer - Write your offer using the PAS formula: Problem-Agitation-Solution in under 100 words - Create a bulleted "This Includes/This Doesn't Include" list for clarity - Tools: Hemingway Editor to simplify language, Loom to record a 60-second pitch for testing Step 5: Test and Refine - A/B test two versions of your offer in outreach emails or discovery calls - Track conversion metrics: inquiry-to-call and call-to-client ratios - Tools: Calendly for tracking booking rates, TypeForm for collecting prospect feedback Real-World Example: BEFORE:  "WordPress development services at competitive rates." AFTER:   "7-day WordPress sites for fitness coaches that convert 30% better, with same-day tech support and DIY training included." This focused offer speaks directly to a specific client's needs, timeline concerns, and desired business outcomes. Hope this helps!

Stop chasing “more leads”. Start growing the customers who keep coming back and bring others with them. Most sales conversations start with: “How do we get more at the top of the funnel?” The better question is: “What are we doing with the customers we already have?” That’s where customer centricity comes in. When you design your business around your best customers – not just what you want to sell – three things happen: 1️⃣ Retain – Make it easy and rewarding to stay Retention is the first growth lever. If a good customer leaves, you don’t just lose revenue, you lose future opportunity. Ask: -> How easy is it for them to continue with us? -> Do we remove friction, or create it? -> What signals are we ignoring when they start to disengage? 2️⃣ Expand – Solve more problems, grow shared value Your existing customers are already paying attention to you. Instead of pushing “new” at strangers, deepen value with the ones who trust you. Ask: -> What bigger problem are we really solving for them? -> Where are they forced to go to another provider, and why? -> How can we grow their outcome, not just our invoice? 3️⃣ Refer – Turn happy customers into active advocates The most credible marketing is a customer who chooses to talk about you. Ask: -> Are we giving them stories worth sharing? -> Do we make it simple and natural to refer? -> Do we recognise and reward advocacy, or just expect it? Around this loop sit four discipline questions: -> What it is: Are we truly designing around customer needs, or around our org chart? -> Why it matters: Do we see retention, expansion and referrals as core revenue levers, or “nice to have”? -> Where to focus: Are we clear on our high-value, high-fit customers and the problems we solve best? -> How to deliver: Are teams aligned around customer outcomes, and are we measuring beyond “new leads”? Customer centricity is not a slogan. It is a deliberate choice to grow with the customers who stay, buy more, and bring others with them. If you look at your current sales strategy, is it lead-obsessed, or truly customer-centric? #Sales #CustomerCentricity #SalesAcceleration

90% of marketing efforts fail to deliver on their promises. Curious how the other 10% succeed? Let me introduce a powerful approach: The Performance Promise Framework. This model emphasizes the alignment of promises with actual performance, ensuring trust and credibility with your audience. A) Understanding Promises: ➔ Brand Promise: Defines what customers can expect from your product or service, answering “What do we stand for?” ➔ Customer Commitment: Articulates the dedication to delivering value, reflecting the relationship you build with your audience. ➔ Value Proposition: Communicates the unique benefits your offering provides, answering “Why should they choose us?” B) Enhancing Performance: ➔ Operational Excellence: Focuses on optimizing processes and resources to fulfill customer expectations efficiently. ➔ Continuous Improvement: Encourages regular assessment and enhancement of services and products to meet changing market demands. ➔ Customer Feedback Loop: Utilizes insights from customers to refine offerings and improve satisfaction continuously. C) Measuring Success: ➔ Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Establishes metrics to track promise fulfillment and overall performance effectiveness. ➔ Customer Satisfaction Surveys: Gathers feedback on experiences to gauge the success of your marketing efforts. ➔ Brand Reputation Metrics: Monitors public perception to assess alignment between promises and delivery. This framework empowers marketers to: 1. Clearly define their brand promises. 2. Align operational performance with customer expectations. 3. Measure success through relevant metrics. Remember, successful marketing thrives on the integrity of promises and performance. Are your marketing promises truly aligned with your performance?

3 steps any coaches, consultants and facilitators can take to develop a clear and compelling program offer And it has nothing to do with your expertise . I used to take the top-down approach. Start with my ideas and spend days, weeks and months fleshing out my ideas. That's the best way to get stuck! I came up with dozens of ideas that went nowhere, or I struggled to sell because I misjudged market needs. The unlock? I started to take the bottom-up approach. Have market research calls of analyse your sales calls to uncover what your market really cares about. And turns the insights into an offer. 1️⃣ Capture the pain points Your market research and sales calls reveal the core issues your potential clients face. Listen for repeated themes. → What are they struggling with? → How's it affecting them? These pain points are gold. 2️⃣ Identify desired outcomes People don't just want to solve problems. They want to achieve specific results. Find out what success looks like for them. → What are their goals? → What do they want to achieve? Tie your offer to these desired outcomes. 3️⃣ Package the offer Describe how the offer will overcome pains to achieve outcomes. → Create a compelling value proposition. → Highlight the the benefits. → Explain how it works. Communicate Clearly: Use plain English. Your offer should be easy to understand. Remember, the key to a successful offer is understanding your client's needs and delivering a solution that effectively addresses them. ~~ ♻️ Share if you found useful ✍️ What's the biggest insight you've gathered from your market research calls? Share in the comments!

Your growth is stalling - because customers feel forgotten. When I was an executive hiring agencies, the relationships often felt too transactional. It rarely went beyond deliverables. That’s something I wanted to change when I owned my agency. I remember a client once saying: “I trust your team more than my own.” That stuck with me. It wasn’t just about delivering great work - it was about showing up in ways they didn’t expect. My big takeaway: Customer-centric strategies go beyond the work itself. They’re about building trust and creating value. Here’s how to do it: 1. Map the customer journey - what’s working, what’s not? 2. Turn data into action - behavior reveals more than surveys. 3. Align your teams - sales, marketing, and CX should work as one. 4. Prioritize retention - it’s more profitable than constant acquisition. 5. Iterate constantly - customers evolve, so your strategy should too. Stay focused: Growth isn’t just about more - it’s about better. Better relationships, better strategies, better results. P.S.: What’s one way you’ve strengthened loyalty with your customers?

I see "customer first" everywhere on websites as if it’s a business strategy. It isn’t. True customer centricity doesn't just change how you talk about customers. It changes your entire business model: → Who you build for → How you make decisions → How you deliver and keep delivering value I've studied hundreds of companies to understand what separates the ones that truly live it from the ones that just put it on their websites.. Here's what the real ones have in common: 1. Customer Segments (Who it's for) → They start with one specific, underserved customer, not everyone → They resist expanding until they deeply understand that first group 2. Value Proposition (Why choose them) → Built around a need the customer is trying to fulfil → The promise is specific enough to say no to the wrong customers 3. Customer Relationships (How they work with you) → Retention is engineered from day one → The "wow" moment is designed, not left to chance 4. Revenue Streams (How they make money) → The model grows when the customer grows → Pricing reflects how they create value for customers 5. Key Resources (What powers them) → Customer knowledge is treated as a strategic asset, protected and shared → There's always someone in the room whose only job is to understand the customer 6. Key Activities (What they do every day) → They talk to customers every week → Decisions get tested against customer expectations, not internal opinion 7. Cost Structure (Where money goes) → They balance spending on both acquisition and customer retention → Investment in customer success is non-negotiable, not a cost to cut Why it's different: ▶︎ The customer is in the model ▶︎ Growth is pulled, not pushed: happy customers do the heavy lifting. ▶︎ They start with pain, not product: solutions come after deep understanding. Customer centricity is a design decision you make in every part of your business. What else would you add?

I spoke with a D2C brand that had skyrocketed its organic traffic yet their daily orders were still flat. They came to me expecting a quick SEO fix. But as I dug deeper, I realized what they needed was a strategic framework —an integrated set of choices that would drive not just visitors, but profitable orders. Initial Situation: ➜ 10x increase in daily clicks (from almost nothing to 2,000/day) ➜ Average Order Value (AOV) surprisingly low ➜ Order volume: virtually unchanged despite the traffic surge Problem Identification: Why wasn’t all that new traffic turning into sales? The brand had invested in SEO, yes—but without aligning content strategy with top-selling SKUs, profit margins, demographics, and their unique value proposition. ❌ They chased visibility, not viability. Process (Our Discovery Call): I asked questions like: ➜ Top-selling SKUs? ➜ High-margin categories? ➜ Core audience and demographics? ➜ Product Differentiators vs. competition? ➜ Customer repeat purchase cycles? By understanding these, I identified where intent-rich opportunities matched their strongest business levers. What We Did Next (The Proposal): I presented a tailored SEO program that went beyond “just more traffic.” It focused on: a) Where we choose to play: Pinpointing search opportunities that have a short time to value of results. b) How we choose to win: Mapping keywords to product categories with favourable Search Volume, Keyword Difficulty (KD), and Average Order Value. I presented them a scatter chart of commercial-intent keywords plotted by: ➜ Search Volume ➜ Keyword Difficulty ➜ Potential AOV Impact This instantly clarified the path forward. Instead of random traffic, we were going after the right traffic. The prospect’s reaction? He said no previous proposal had offered this level of strategic clarity. It’s easy to chase vanity metrics (traffic, rankings, clicks), but without aligning your SEO strategy to business goals, you’ll never see the revenue catch up. Stop treating SEO as a game of traffic. ➡️ Treat it as a strategic tool that positions you in front of high-intent audiences. ➡️ It’s not about playing everywhere—it’s about winning in the right places. If you’re looking to make strategic choices—on Google, Bing, or next-gen platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude —and you want to translate visibility into growth, let’s talk. I’d be excited to help you map your SEO opportunities to real business outcomes.

I was mentoring someone on my team today when I saw their proposal. The proposal had nothing factually wrong or even had all the key points. I messaged, “It does not have a character; it does not have a soul.” Can you please add some soul. She was even more confused and called. This is what I ended up saying—almost spontaneously without skipping a beat. Three things, I said - (now I am thinking of three things to say - with 30 years behind me. I guess I started well and was so happy I ended well, too. This is what I said - Communication in any proposal, discussion, or negotiation is as important as what we speak. Over the years, I’ve found that good communication—whether in sales, non-profits, or strategic partnerships—rests on three things 1. Setting the Context/Start with a Common Frame of Reference: Before diving into details or solutions, you must ensure that everyone who reads the proposal or participates in the conversation is working from the same frame of reference. Misalignment at the start—often unnoticed—can lead to vastly different interpretations, wasted effort, and usually a disaster (Trump—Zelensky example came in handy). A good context setting ensures clarity, reduces friction, and helps focus on the real problem. 2. Build your USP/ Brand / Key Identity: What makes you, you. What makes us us? She was puzzled. I asked about the brand keywords. Communication must carry a distinct identity, whether a personal brand, an organisation, or a movement. Without a clear and consistent character, recognition and recall diminish. Over time, staying true to this identity builds trust, credibility, and lasting impact. 3. Make it sound positive, optimistic and practical. Be enthusiastic about working together to make them a part of solving the problem. Every challenge has blind spots, but how they are framed makes all the difference. A good proposal acknowledges constraints without making them roadblocks. Write with practical optimism—one that energises, motivates, and inspires action rather than confuse it with complexity. So, if the proposal had to have a soul, all good proposals, discussions, and negotiations would be clear, distinct, and futuristic. They set the stage for the same frame of reference, establish a brand/ identity, and create momentum toward real solutions. Are your proposals structured for impact? I would love to hear how you approach this in your work. Let’s discuss it! #Leadership #Communication #Strategy Sameeksha Gupta Sonia Duggal Neha Bharti Anamika Sai Ravin Carr

Bit odd innit? 👀 Pablo Ylarri 🎯 just dropped a great piece on this on the Product Marketing Alliance Pablo leads PMM for LATAM out of Buenos Aires, working across 14 countries in three languages. Pablo lives this problem daily so I trust his pov on this! The problem: Fragmentation pulls you apart Markets demand localization. Sales reps on the ground know their prospects better than anyone. They want messaging that feels local, tailored, and relevant. and... Leadership demands consistency. Product positioning, brand promise, and strategic narratives must be unified, or the company risks confusing customers, analysts, and investors. As a PMM, you sit in the middle of that tension. And in fast growing orgs, fragmentation can happen quickly: AKA... - Regional decks multiply - Translations lose nuance - Sales collateral drifts from the agreed narrative - Teams spend more time debating "what we say" than actually selling So, how do you solve this big challenge? Pablo says start here: 1) Single source of truth One core messaging framework. One transparent process for updates. No silent edits floating in Slack threads and old presentations. Sales can localize, but they start from the same base. 2) Align across languages, not markets Translation isn't mechanical, it's strategic. English emphasizes directness. Spanish requires precision in formality. Brazilian Portuguese favors conversational tone. Treat each translation as adaptation, not copy. 3) Build partnership with Sales Regional reps will improvise if materials don't reflect their reality. Involve them early in message testing. Establish regional champions. Celebrate when local input improves global narrative. 4) Flexibility within a framework Define non negotiables: core value prop, strategic narrative, differentiators. Give regions room to adapt delivery: local examples, nearby case studies, tone adjustments. 5) Communicate relentlessly with PMM peers Weekly syncs. Shared document reviews. Quick check-ins to avoid duplication. Silence creates inconsistency. Two PMMs can accidentally create two PMM philosophies. 6) Codify lessons into playbooks Every time you solve a fragmentation issue, document how to prevent it next time. Messaging frameworks. Enablement guidelines. Localization rules. Playbooks scale trust. P.S. What else would you add PMMs? Make sure you give Pablo a follow btw!