What client value proposition do we offer?

Let’s start at the beginning. Can you answer the question: "why clients are using your services? Will clients be able to tell what they find valuable about your service offering?” If you cannot answer these questions, you do not have a proper client value proposition. And without a proper client value proposition, clients will be very tentative to pay for the advice and service they are receiving.

Let’s look at what we mean by a (unique) client value proposition. A client value proposition is as simple as solving your clients’ financial problems and delivering benefit for them. At the end you must be able to improve your client’s financial situation. So in layman’s terms your client value proposition will be a promise of value that your clients’ can expect from your services.

Most of us DO not really struggle to define what services we offer - that is easy - we struggle to define our perfect client and what we can do for them. We are finding difficulty to establish their fears, goals, frustrations and the single biggest financial problem we can solve for them. The value you bring to your clients is the value that they are willing to pay for when solving their biggest problems. If you cannot solve their financial problems. why should they pay?

A big challenge in future will be to change our attitude of trying to be somebody for everybody and to solve everything for all.

When trying to do everything for everybody one easily lose your value proposition. Ask what you can offer from a knowledge and skill perspective and to whom you want to offer your expertise and experience. Then most importantly ask why you want to apply your unique skills, knowledge and abilities. Answering this will guide you to your unique value proposition and not just another nothing meaning generic value proposition statement about what you offer.

 

Only after establishing the why one should start with how you want to deliver the services and what you want to deliver. Target the specific client you want to work with and become an expert in a niche market or develop a unique client value proposition for each of the market segments you are working in. It will be very difficult and almost impossible to have the same value proposition for each market segment you offer advice to.

Remember the more similar and interchangeable things are, the less reason there is for clients to pay or to pay more. Be careful not to commoditise your services or doing commoditised things, doing this will make you part of the ‘red ocean’ and not the ‘blue ocean’. Red oceans denote for example all FSPs in South Africa doing business in a similar way. This is the known market space. Blue oceans denote the FSPs doing business uniquely or differently. This is the unknown market space.

 

In the red oceans, boundaries are defined and accepted, and the competitive rules of the game are known. Blue oceans, in contrasts, are defined by untapped market space, demand creation, and the opportunity for growth. Remember that most blue oceans are created from within red oceans by expanding existing industry boundaries and standards.

(For more information on this you can read Blue Ocean Strategy, W Chan Kim and R Mauborgne).