Putting the value in value propositions
21st March 2019 | Simon Kelly and Dr Paul Johnston
This is the first of a series of articles in which the authors explore customer value and differentiation. In this article Dr Simon Kelly and Dr Paul Johnston consider the importance of customer value and its criticality in building effective value propositions. They draw together their experience as marketing and sales practitioners, their recent academic and commercial research, and their ongoing conversations with sales and marketing leaders to give a contemporary view on how effectively customer value is understood and embedded into value propositions that help or hinder salespeople to sell. They also consider how marketing and sales alignment impacts on successful value proposition development. Much of what is covered builds on their co-authored book Value-Ology: Aligning Sales and Marketing to Shape and Deliver Profitable Value Propositions, (Kelly, Johnston, Danheiser 2017).
Credible commercial research suggests there is definitely a problem out there. In a recent study performed by Televerde, 47% of B2B salespeople said that the major reason they lost a deal was because the product or service’s value had not been adequately conveyed to the prospect. Small wonder that 46% of salespeople said the asset they most wanted from marketing was “value proposition”.
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