In earlier posts, I shared reasons why value propositions are so important. They become voicemail messages, emails, VITO letters, and more. As sales guru Jill Konrath states, the lack of a strong value proposition has killed more sales campaigns than any other reason.

Let’s examine a specific example.

The brochure above violates all rules of value propositions.
First, no prospect buys a toolkit. We’re asking them to figure out what they need.

Second, it is too complex and lengthy. It could not be turned into a 20 second voicemail, for instance.

Third, it is not personalized.

Fourth, there is no proof point on measurable results.

But there is only one metric that matters — qualified, sales ready leads. By that definition, it was a total failure.

To fix this, we first switched the point of view to customers. We also figured out what made us unique — our business consultants. Finally, we worked on a simple way to address their keys business needs. Finally, we looked for a measurable proof point.

Here is the result — an email from Salesforce.com:

Dear Randy,

Congratulations on the launch of your new website! I researched your company extensively there.

How might we help you?

NSA provides business consulting and software, which help our wholesale distribution clients to Grow, Prosper and become more formidable Competitors in their markets.

Creating substantial revenue growth, profit enhancement and market share increases take far more than good software. It takes brainpower too.

The results below are the kind of real business results our clients experience.

Randy, would you like to discuss how Rutherford Equipment Company might achieve similar results?

An electrical distributor in Texas:

• Doubled revenue with existing staff.
• Cut PO corrections by 65%, adding $28,000 to the bottom line in the first six months.
• Eliminated costly and disruptive physical inventories
• Cut Cost of Goods Sold by 2.5%, which added $660,000 to their bottom line each and every year thereafter.

We crafted an email template in Salesforce.com. We wrote a series of voicemail templates based on this. We drafted a couple of CxO letters based on it. We wrote a telemarketing template.

Did it work? Let’s quote a CEO. When asked by our President whom else he was looking at. “Patrick, to be honest, I was not looking at all. But after I got such compelling information from NSA, I HAD to call and find out.”

The pipeline is filling fast. Good luck and good selling.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is President of Fun and Find New Customers “Lead Generation Made Simple” Check out the online show every Friday at 11am ET, “Laugh and Learn with the Fearless Competitor.”

Find New Customers helps businesses (with 50 to 5,000 employees and complex products) develop and implement marketing lead generationprograms to improve the way they find and acquire high quality sales leadsusing best practices in business to business lead generation. In fact, a recent study found that sales teams with fewer, high quality sales leads closed more than sales teams with more leads of dubious quality.