By Susan Letterman White
What is a value proposition?
A value proposition is what you are offering to provide in exchange for your fee. Your value proposition is your service, product, and/or the experience of working with you. It’s not about your personal brand – your identity or values. It’s not about how able you are to create trusting relationships, where clients have confidence in your legal acumen and ability. It’s not even about how people feel when working with you, although that is important.
Rather, it is about the perception held by a prospective client, client, or referral source of the unique value you offer to people – the meaningful difference you can make in their lives and in helping them with their problems and goals. It’s about their point of view, the problems they care about most, and whether you offer a different and better solution to those problems.
The operative word is value, from your client’s point of view. There are three categories of value from your client’s point of view. You can create new value, protect existing value, or restore value lost for clients. If you find ways for your clients to do what they want to do, then you create value. If you find ways to help your clients preserve what matters to them most, then you maintain value. If you find ways to make your client whole after being physically, emotionally, or financially limited or harmed, then you restore value.
A good value proposition quickly tells clients the problems you will solve for them, the leverage you will provide to make attaining their goals easier, and the benefits that will make their lives easier and better.
Why are some value propositions better than others?
Let’s take a look at two service companies to see what works and what could use a little improvement.
As a ride-sharing company, Uber appeals to drivers and riders with different and persuasive value propositions. On its website home page, you will find this:
Very quickly, I know how Uber can be of value to me, whether I am a rider or a driver.
Boston University is a private university. Its campus is the city of Boston. Its competition for undergraduates is stiff. There are many similar universities in similar locations – even within the city of Boston. On its website home page, you will find an old-fashioned landing page and center stage is a picture and story of neuroscientist Rahul Desikan, a “pioneering neuroscientist” who “was attacking ALS. Then, ALS attacked him.” This may be an interesting and moving story, but it doesn’t tell me anything obvious and persuasive about the value of attending Boston University as an undergraduate.
Underneath and in small font are four categories: headlines, research, community, and alumni. Each category offers more information. Under headlines is news about BU today. There is an article on E-cigarettes, managing information overload, and getting to know Dorchester. BU is not in Dorchester, so I find this very confusing. The information under the other headings is similarly aimed at a narrow audience of people, who might find the specific topics of interest. Nowhere on the homepage of this website does it tell a prospective student why BU is a better choice than any other university. There are thirteen information links at the top of the page, many with drop-down menus. Each menu has too many additional topics.
Even if I select “ABOUT,” I’m told that “Boston University is no small operation…our three campuses are always humming, always in high gear.” These clichés tell me nothing at all. I could choose to click on any of several additional links, including to “meet the people and places that keep the University running smoothly,” but it’s difficult to find meaningful information at first glance about why Boston University is unique and worth the tuition and estimated expenses of $69,668 per year.
Clarity in a succinct message of the unique value to your target market is what makes a value proposition good.
Why create a value proposition?
To a client, your value proposition is the value they conclude they are receiving in exchange for what they give you? If they do not conclude that they are receiving more value as a result of hiring you, they will opt to live with a problem or attempt to solve it in other ways. Clients give you their time, money, and emotions. In exchange, they want a problem to disappear and a solution to move into its place. They have needs and interests, none of which are the details of how you will use your legal expertise. When you can convey precisely, which factors or aspects of the service or the experience you offer will solve which of their specific problems, you give your prospect the information they need to decide whether or not your unique value proposition is of sufficient value to them.
Some people say that your value proposition is the most important piece of your overall marketing messaging. It’s a catalyst for transforming prospects into clients when it tells them why they should hire you, rather than another lawyer. It clearly conveys the benefits of working with you. The most important element is that it connects to the conversation about a problem or desire already happening in your prospect’s mind.
How to create your value proposition
Many value propositions are drenched in trite, meaningless, weak, and ambiguous words. An effective value proposition explains how your services address a specific need experienced by your ideal client. A value proposition is also called a unique selling proposition because by using the language of the prospect, not the lawyer, and talking about the prospect’s problems begging for solutions, you transform a prospect into a client. The way you speak about your services to other lawyers or legal staff or even your family should differ from how your clients describe your services and how you describe your services to them.
Creating your unique value proposition is a five-step process.
Step One: Describe your ideal client or prospect. Is your client an individual or an entity? If an entity, who is the decision-maker? What does that person care about most? What makes this client or prospect ideal?
In a for-profit corporation, your client cares about creating or preserving value – their profit or competitive advantage. They may also care about restoring value that they feel has been unfairly taken or not paid when due. Individuals may care most about their family member’s health and well-being, what others think about them, or restoring value that they feel has unfairly been taken. Non-profit organizations care about creating value through fundraising and relevant acquisitions and actions, helping their stakeholders, growing their members, and keeping their existing members happy.
Step Two: Do you create new value, maintain value, or restore value for your client?
Step Three: Describe the value in detail from the prospect’s point of view. What unique experience and value are you offering?
Step Four: What problems do your prospects have that keep them awake at night? Come up with as many problems as possible.
Step Five: For each problem you identify, which specific factors, qualities, characteristics, or defining features of your service, product, or the experience of working with you respond to each problem?
Step Six: Put this information together to write a short, easy-to-recall, value proposition in the language of your client. Make it persuasive and distinguishable from competitors. What problems will you solve, or situations will you improve? What specific benefits will you deliver? Why are you better than the lawyer down the hall?
You may need to analyze your competition to discover where they fall short. Their weaknesses are your opportunities to distinguish yourself. What do you do better than your competition? There are three ways to differentiate yourself. You might describe the features – the facts or characteristics of your service; the advantages – how a feature can help the prospect; or the benefits – how a feature or advantage meets a prospect’s explicit needs. Research shows that benefits are the most persuasive way to describe solutions.
Your features are what you offer – notify of new lawsuits soon after they are filed, explain the risks of different strategies, file all documents related to a trademark request, etc. Your benefits solve your prospect’s problems – early notification of lawsuits, sleep better at night, knowing someone is on the lookout for lawsuits against your company. Your advantage may be your price point or speed.
Start with one short sentence about the end-benefit of your legal services. Then in 2-3 sentences, specifically explain those services and why they are useful. List three key features, advantages, or benefits of your services with bullet points.
Conclusion
Your value proposition should be read and understood quickly in less than 30 seconds. As long as you are not trying to sell something that few people want to buy or trying to sell to someone who doesn’t have purchasing power, your value proposition will transform prospects into clients and clients into brand advocates.
