If you’re running a business, it’s crucial to understand the power of emotional connections in selling situations or buying cycles. Why? Because people often make decisions based on their emotions rather than facts. This is where the value proposition comes in.
To attract the right clients, high performers put a lot of thought into the Right Value Proposition. In communicating their Value Proposition, the starting point is understanding how people make decisions.
There are three truths about how people make decisions:
1. All decisions are value based.
2. All decisions are confidence based.
3. All decisions are risk based.
High performers put a lot of effort into uncovering what the Right Clients value. A value is a thing or condition people consistently act upon to get and to keep. A value is a vector, a direction with a force. High performers help their prospects and clients identify, clarify and intensify what is important to them.
High performers establish confidence by showing profile prospects and clients the relevance and uniqueness of their Value Proposition.
Through stories, analogies and metaphors, they also highlight the risks to which the profile client is exposed & the way(s) in which their proposed offering eliminates or mitigates these losses.
High performers understand that people treat facts as factors and make decisions based upon feelings. All decisions are emotionally based.
One of our clients, we will call him Jay, understands how to apply these three truths. Jay knows that people are first motivated to avoid loss. To motivate them to act, you have to expose the risks in their current situation. Jay asks questions and listens to help his prospective clients and clients identify, clarify and intensify the losses to which they are exposed. Jay uses the story of his own family to illustrate the risks entrepreneurs face.
When Jay was 10, his father declared bankruptcy. His father mortgaged everything to try to keep his business going. The failure of his father’s business devastated the family. A year later, his parents separated and Jay moved into a small apartment with his mother and younger brother. They went from a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle to surviving day to day. His father put all of his eggs in one basket. When the business failed, his family lost everything. Jay is passionate about helping entrepreneurs and their families avoid that situation.
When people buy from you, they typically look for the following qualities:
- Integrity
- Humility
- Dedication
- Passion
Jay demonstrates all of these qualities. In this way, he establishes confidence. The questions he asks and the stories he tells create an emotional bond with his prospective clients and clients. He appeals to their values – to what is important to them.
Jay has mastered the conversational environment in describing his Value PropositionHe can articulate in a few sentences and throughout the Buying Cycle or Sales Process, his mastery of three questions every business has to get right:
1. Who is the Right Client?
2. What is the Right Value Proposition?
3. What is the Right Exchange of Value?
In this way, he is able to attract the right clients by demonstrating the value of what he does. The clarity of his Value Proposition drives everything. His clients buy based upon value, not price.
If you want to get serious about focusing on strategically building and growing your business, sign up for our upcoming Business Builder Playbook program cohort. When you join, you get access to a peer-to-peer coaching program that gives you a roadmap to grow your business and achieve and sustain peak performance.
