How NOT to Write a Value Proposition

IT’S “READER BEWARE” OUT THERE ON THE WILD WILD WEB, particularly when it comes to advice on crafting a strong Value Proposition. I’m sure whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry on “Customer Value Proposition” meant well — but their advice is waaaaay off base. Yikes! If you follow their prescription, you could make it harder for someone to choose you, not easier. And you’ll certainly be a LOT less memorable with their formula.
        Don’t believe me? Check this out:

“A value-proposition should contain at least five elements:
1. current situation (including problems, causes, and effects)
2. target situation
3. when to reach the target situation
4. cost of reaching the target situation
5. the benefits of both the targeting and the achievement phases"

At least five elements?! Do you think your prospects or audience or readers are even going to remember one with all that stuff dumped on them? Not a chance.
        And all those detail points sound like parts of a proposal or a B-school treatise, not a concise description of what the buyer can achieve.
        Ultimately, a Value Proposition comes down to why your audience or prospects or readers should care about what you have to offer — and this Wikipedia entry (which is the first thing that shows up when someone Googles “value proposition”) doesn’t get anywhere near that concept.
        The “value” in Value Proposition needs to be what THEY (prospects, audience, readers) see as valuable, not what you want to achieve. So any statement that focuses on your agenda, or your products or services, is NOT a value proposition, no matter how loudly you proclaim it to be so — nor how resolutely a Wikipedia entry describes it. It’s not your value proposition, it’s theirs.

For more on this topic, check out “How Good Is Your Value Proposition?”