Creating a Strong Proposition to Effectively Solve a Problem for Your Ideal Customer

So, you're growing and scaling your business and all of a sudden, things grind to a halt. Now, you might think, that's not going to happen to me, my business has been growing effectively since we started the thing.  But let me tell you it's more common than you'd like to realise or certainly than I'd like to admit, and there's a reason for it. And the reason for that is that under the six peaks of value creation, which is how I look at businesses that have the potential to grow, ones that can be sold to private equity for eight to nine figures in the future. The third peak is what we call proposition. And the proposition is not simply a product or a service, I mean, that is part of it, it's the summation of all the various components that come together so that you can solve a problem, you know, create a solution that solves a problem for your ideal customer.  So, the proposition, sometimes called the value proposition, is all about the product or service, but it's also about the experience. It's the way that you do it, it's the whole summation, all the moving parts, all the cogs that delight your ideal customer, that not only gets them to potentially become a customer in the first place, but gets them coming back for more and also telling their friends, their colleagues about what you do so that eventually you can get more business from that, and eventually you can create raving fans. So, the reason I say beforehand that businesses can grind to a halt is because the world is moving so quickly these days, you know, we've had challenges with the environment, politically, economically of late, as I said, we've had COVID-19, we've had all these sorts of things hitting us as I record this today. But the other thing that's happening in digital transformation in terms of how we use technology, the growth of social media, the impact of those things means that the pace of change is happening much, much quicker than it has ever had or ever had in the history of commerce and of business.

So, what that basically means is, you might have a proposition, a product or service, which was effectively right 18 months ago, two years ago, but what happens if your audience has changed? What happens if their needs have changed? Their challenges? Their problems have changed, and you haven't been externally focused enough to notice that. And as a result of that, what you created, what you spent all your time innovating around has quickly become obsolete, irrelevant in their world because it no longer solves the problem that they currently have because it's just changed so much. So, it's an important part of the whole analysis under the six peaks of value creation, because you want to have a proposition that solves a very, very specific problem for your ideal customer. And one of the things I like to say is you want to mean a lot to someone, not a little to everyone. And the only way that you can do that is to be more externally focused, do your research, test trial experiments, use your marketing in that way, and constantly work off a platform that has the ability to iterate, you know, the word pivot is overused these days, I'm not talking about wholesale changes, I'm talking about those clever tweaks and tunes that you can make to your proposition that means that you can continue solving those problems for your clients. And what's interesting about it, if I look at it through the lens of an investor, from a private equity exit one day, a lot of value is put on the proposition because the more differentiated it is, the more unique, the more remarkable it is, the harder it is for the competition to copy. And when I was studying many, many years ago, I had the opportunity to go to INSEAD the business school, and there was a great book called Blue Ocean Strategy, and it basically meant that if you can compete in the blue ocean, you know, in the sea where there are no competitors, you're going to get a disproportionate value on your business. Whereas, I suppose the counteract to that is the red ocean where all the fish are frenzying for the limited resources.  

So, I challenge you today to have a look at your proposition, just because it was working previously, you know, is it still relevant today? And more importantly, is it going to be relevant tomorrow? Because the more that you can put into that now, the more work you can put onto that now, the more that you're going to create a stunning business, you're going to create freedom for yourself, you're going to build wealth for yourself and investors, and you're going to be able to potentially achieve that eight to nine-figure exit one day, which is what I know a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners are looking for.