Entrepreneur, Marketer, Online Adventurer.

Step Two of building a Value Proposition Statement that works is all about nailing your vendor category description. So, continuing with the series on how to build the right Value Proposition Statement that works for your organization, I will focus now on articulating your Vendor category.

When played right, Vendors are responsible for (more…)

Today I attended the GROW2012 Conference. Its theme “Rethinking Business: Staying relevant in a new era” and its lineup of speakers was phenomenal — and having the right Value Proposition was a very relevant topic.

Speakers included founders of fast-growing companies (such as Matt Mickiewicz, Co Founder 99designs and David Cancel, Chief Product Officer HubSpot), and key industry influencers (such as Ethan Kurzweil, Vice President Bessemer VP and Dave McClure, Founding Partner 500 Start-ups).

In particular, I was impressed by what Adam Chapnick, Principal Indiegogo, had to say in his talk “Disruption: Harnessing the Crowd.” Indigogo is a crowdfunding platform. They raised $1.5 million in funding in 2011 and $15 million this year in a Series A. (more…)

Without the right Value Proposition options to be used with the right targets at the right points in the sales cycle, the Go-to-Market strategy and Demand Creation plans will remain undifferentiated; be oriented towards products rather than markets served; and therefore deliver sub-standard business results.

Here is Step One of building a Value Proposition Statement that works: determining the target audiences that your company is going after. (more…)

Most companies, I am afraid to report, do not know how to craft a Value Proposition statement. This is biting them.

Specifically, having worked in the last few months with a large number of high-tech start-ups at various stages, it became glaringly apparent that early- and late-stage start-ups are primarily leveraging founders’ tech skills and do not and/or cannot devote sufficient resources to the development of their Value Proposition early enough in the game.

Never mind that the core technology is brilliant or that the market is ripe for the picking. If the Value Proposition isn’t well articulated, the company’s users, prospects, clients (even investors!) won’t bother listening to the underlying genius. (more…)

Is there a right answer to the “What Do You Do” question?

Any business person worth his or her salt knows they need an “elevator pitch”—the quick, succinct summation of the value their company delivers, i.e., of their Value Proposition.

We all know the lesson: An executive asked “What do you do?” must respond with the Value Proposition, a short statement about their business, that should last no longer than the average elevator ride.

But most executives fail miserably at this — and on do so two counts: (more…)