Do Your Employees Understand Your Company’s Value to Customers?

As a business owner, you are well aware of your company’s value. After all, you put your company together. You understand everything from your strengths in supply chain management, to your excellence in customer service and support. To you, your value assertion is immediately understood. However, do your employees appreciate and understand that value? More importantly, does your sales and marketing team understand that value and are they able to accentuate it when meeting customers?

I often find that managers and business owners have a much better feel for their company’s business strengths than their employees do. One of the reasons for this is because manages have risen through the ranks, they’ve worked through various departments and they have an established history of performance. They understand the company’s value as much, if not more, than the business owner. However, the average employee and salesperson often doesn’t understand or appreciate this value. They can give a brief description of the company’s value, but they don’t understand it as well as management does. Either they haven’t worked at the company long enough, don’t understand the big picture, or most importantly, nobody has ever taken the time to define the company’s value chain.

 

The above video is from the post: Defining Value Assertion and Value Proposition in Business Development

So, how important is it for your sales and marketing team to understand your company’s value? Simply put, your company's value assertion is your definitive statement about why your company is better than its competition, why your customers should see your company as their primary vendor and most importantly, why your competition simply can’t keep up. In essence, it is that one singular message about your company’s product offering, its business knowhow and its core competencies.

The Value Assertion is Meant to Reduce Customer Stress

The purpose of the value assertion isn’t to inundate your customer with information. It isn’t meant to bore them or overwhelm them. The purpose is to ask your customer leading questions so that you can define your company’s value and put your customer's fears to rest. The idea is to pique your customer’s interests by getting them to open up about their concerns. Once they do, your salespeople should fill in the gap by outlining why they don’t have to fear the same things with your company. Use leading questions to get your customers to open up about their concerns, and then use your value assertion to explain how your company is different.

The above is taken from the post: Your Value Chain Defines Your Value Assertion: B2B Marketing Essentials 

Performing a value chain analysis is a simple and straightforward process. While some consultants want to complicate the matter, the simple truth is that for most companies, defining their value should be easy. Start by defining your company’s supply chain and how it helps to shorten your product to market lead times. Explain how your operations help to service customers. Outline your strengths in product innovation and design. Finally, allay your customer’s fears by showing how your sales, marketing and customer service team deals with issues. Each outlines the value you bring to your customers. Your salespeople must clearly understand this value and use it to win business.