Being heard over the competition in a crowded marketplace takes a special type of message. This whitepaper presents research on why some seller messages get heard, while most others don't. It shows you how you can make your proposition up to 10 times more powerful.

1. Special Report: $4.99
How To Make Your Proposition:
10 Times More Powerful!
“10 times
more powerful
Being heard over the competition in a crowded
marketplace takes a special type of message.
propositions by
monetizing and
This white paper presents research on why some seller
validating them!”
messages get heard, while most others don't.
It shows you how you can make your proposition up to 10
times more powerful.

2. Analyzing Your Benefits − A Practical Assessment
We wanted to understand the state of health of the modern sales
proposition. So we asked approx. 200 sales people to list the top 5
benefits of their products, or solutions. Then using a clever yet simple
formula we tested their appeal to today's more demanding buyers.
We asked these 200 sales people to list their benefits. They readily
obliged.
Keeping the list to the Top 5 was a bit of a challenge as the
temptation to add a sixth, or seventh to the list was great. But,
how powerful were the benefits listed? Well, the overall results
were somewhat disappointing.
Most of the benefits listed failed critical strength and credibility
tests. That is because while listing benefits is easy, quantifying and
validating them was not.
Test The Strength Of Your Benefits
The strength of a benefit is measured in terms of its impact, or appeal.
A strong benefit grabs the prospect's attention. It is heard over the
noise and is likely to be remembered.
How to measure the strength of a benefit? Well, as the table shows it
is pretty straight-forward:
Benefit Strength How It Is Communicated?
Weak Verbalized It is expressed in adjectives (e.g.
delivers major savings).
Medium Quantified It is expressed with numbers, or
percentages (e.g. 3 times faster).
Strong Monetized It is expressed in the dollars, euro
and pounds (e.g. cuts costs from
26c to 2c per tonne).
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3. The key point is a proposition with numbers is much more powerful
than one with just words. However, if our sample is anything to go by
3 out of 5 benefits contain no numbers, just words. That means they
can be classified as 'weak'.
That is not to say that an un-measured (or un-measurable) benefit
does not have any value. It may well have, but it does have less value
particularly to the business managers and 'bean-counters' who control
spending.
IDEAS: Making It Work For You
Make your message compelling by capturing a before & after measure
of how your customers benefit from your product/service.
Why 'Verbal Benefits' Are Weak
There are many reasons why 'verbal benefits' are weak:
There is a great sameness when it comes to the language used by
most companies. Indeed, 'the so-called competing suppliers were “A quantified
almost indistinguishable – it is like the same person wrote most of the
websites and brochures' commented one buyer after completing a
benefit has a
market analysis. higher chance of
One problem is that adjectives are used to describe things that are grabbing the
not necessarily important to the buyer – such as 'patented',
buyer's attention.”
'proprietary', or 'award-winning'. This is an example of the focus on
narrowly defined competitive advantages that describe the supplier
and his or her solution rather than the benefits that will accrue to the
buyer from their use.
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4. Even if the benefits attempt to describe the results the buyer will
achieve they can be immediately nullified by the
use of terms such as 'major savings', 'significant
reduction', or 'dramatic increase'. For the buyer
such language hints that you don't really
know, or are afraid to publish the actual
numbers.
When a benefit is quantified it has a much
higher chance of grabbing the buyer's
attention. So it makes sense to put the number
right up there in the headline. Whether the
reader believes the number or not is a separate
matter, but you have got their attention.
Any quantifiable measurement of the benefit
(e.g. a 25% increase) is better than none.
However, the most effective way to
communicate a benefit is to monetize it. That is
to express it in Euros, Dollars, or Pounds
money. That means expressing your solution in
terms of how it will impact on the buyer's bottom line.
IDEAS: Making It Work For You
You have probably noticed how buyers have an annoying habit of
reading the last page of your proposal first. However, the price page is
often the only place that there are numbers to be found. Our advice is
to write the last page first, bringing the monetary benefits of your
solution right up front.
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5. The Hierarchy Of Quantifiable Benefits
Quantifying benefits makes them much stronger. But, there are many
dimensions of a product or service that can be quantified. Some are
inherently more interesting or important to buyers than others. They
are ranked from highest to lowest below:
1. Business Impact/Results – these directly communicate the results
the buyer will achieve (e.g. cuts costs by $250.000). To be compelling
as compelling as possible a 'before & after' comparison is
communicated.
2. General Benefits – this is typically the advantages of buying the
product (e.g. cuts time to market by 25%) in a form of a long list that
can go from the general to the specific.
3. Competitive advantages – these communicate more what the
supplier considers to be points of differentiation over competitors
(e.g. fastest solution on the market).
4. Features – these tell about the product and how it works, rather
than the benefits to the customer (e.g. 3 times greater screen
resolution).
IDEAS: Making It Work For You
There are two sides of the brain, the right hand side deals with
pictures and emotions and the left hand side deals with numbers and
facts. Look at your benefits list – and see what side of the brain they
appeal to. Are you appealing to only half the buyer's brain?
List the parts of your proposition that appeal to the buyer's left (logic,
numbers, details, etc.) and right (emotional, pictures, emotions, etc)
side of the brain.
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6. Struggling To Quantify Your Benefits?
Here are some tips on strengthening your proposition.
 If it cannot be quantified directly then:
o Find the associated, or proxy variable that can be measured.
o Go back and re-define it so that it can. For example define
improved customer satisfaction in terms of % increase in
number of customers who say they are 'satisfied', or 'very
satisfied' in the annual customer survey.
 If you don't have numbers use industry averages, published
statistic, or simply rules of thumb.
 Present your quantifiable benefits in terms of a before and
after – that is contrasting the situation before and after your
product/solution is used.
 State the assumptions underlying any 'quantifiables' clearly and
allow buyers the prospect of calculating their own benefits.
 Inevitably some benefits cannot be quantified. If this is the case
emotionalize them instead (e.g. by using more powerful/emotive
language).
IDEAS: Making It Work For You
Replace those adjectives that dominate the marketing vocabulary,
such as 'industry-leading', 'superior', 'user-friendly', 'significant
savings', etc. with quantifiable statements as to how the buyer will
benefit.
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7. The 2nd Dimension Of Proposition Power: Credibility
The strength of your proposition is one key dimension of its power.
But a strong benefit is of little value unless it is believed. Credibility is
therefore the second dimension upon which we measure the power, “A strong
or effectiveness of a proposition.
benefit is of little
There are many factors that determine just how believable your value unless it is
message is. However, the credibility of what is said depends on who
says it. That is whether: believed...”
 You say it
 An experts says it
 Customers themselves say it.
How to measure the credibility of a benefit, or proposition? Again it is
pretty straight-forward, as the table shows:
Benefit Who Communicates It
Credibility
Weak You say it. The claims are made by
your marketing and you
expect customers to take
you at your word.
Medium An experts, or other Your claims are backed
authority says it. up/endorsed by an expert,
or recognized authority
(e.g. certification body).
Strong Your customers say it. Your customers relate their
own direct experience of
your company either in
quotes, references, or case
studies.
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8. Most buyers don't take vendor claims too seriously. They have heard
it all before – the promises, pitches and proposals – and have learned
to be cynical of vendor self-praise. They would rather hear what you
customers have to say – it is a lot more credible and indeed relevant.
IDEAS: Making It Work For You
Want to stop your marketing brochures going into the bin?
Well, write them in the form of customer case studies instead. Let
your customers do the bragging for you.
The words of your customers are much more powerful than all of your
marketing. Just how powerful depends on a number of factors:
 Whether the customer is a peer, or somebody that they can
relate to, or aspire to given factors, such as; size, profile,
industry sector, markets served, etc.
 Whether it is attributed, or anecdotal in nature. This depends
on whether the customer is named, or unnamed. The first is
obviously the most important but it is not always possible.
 The medium used, for example a case study telling the story of
their success and the role your product/solution played. Or it
might be just a quotation from the customer.
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9. IDEAS: Making It Work For You
It is hard for the buyer in a large bank to get excited about what a
customer in the engineering sector has to say. With this in mind tailor
the customer examples, references and case studies you use
according to the market, or segment you are targeting.
Maximizing Your Proposition's Power
Here is a tool to measure, or forecast the effectiveness of your
proposition, or benefits message. It is in the form of a table showing
the strength of the messages in columns and credibility in rows.
Before calculating the effectiveness of your proposition, here are two
key points to be gleaned from the table:
Taking both strength and credibility into account a sales message, or
proposition can be communicated in 9 different ways.
That means there are 9 different possible levels of success. All our
research suggests that a benefit statement that has quantification and
customer validation is ten times more powerful that the typical form
of marketing speak.
Here is how you can use the table to gauge the effectiveness of your
message: Find the column and the row that best describes your
proposition's strength and credibility. For example taking 'quantified'
column 2 and 'you say it' row 1, putting the effectiveness of the
proposition/benefit at 40%.
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10. Proposition Power Index:
Calculating The Power Of Your Proposition
Strength: How it is said?
Verbalized Quantified Monetized
Credibility: Customers say it 60% 80% 100%
Who says it? Experts say it 40% 60% 80%
You say it 10% 40% 60%
The Table Explained:
At the top of the far right column is the index figure of 100,
corresponding to the power or effectiveness of a message that is
monetized and said by your customers. This indicates the most
powerful form of sales proposition.
At the bottom of the far left column is the index figure of 10,
corresponding to the power of the proposition that is purely verbal (as
opposed to quantified) and is not substantiated by a 3rd party (i.e.
'you say it').
Contrast the bottom of column 1 with the top of column 3. The
message is clear: you can make your proposition up to 10 times more
powerful by first monetizing it and then validated it by reference to
your customers.
IDEAS: Making It Work For You
Rework your telesales script, or email marketing letters to
communicate a quantifiable proposition that is backed up by
customer quotes, or stories. Then for the next two weeks use your old
message on half of your list and the new message on the other half.
When the two weeks are up compare the results.
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11. The Science Behind This Paper
These insights and tools are based on extensive research under 3
headings:
1. Buyer Research – our ground-breaking research into how modern
buying decisions are made and the implications for sellers.
2. Best Practice Research – Over 1 million pages of best practice sales
case studies, books and research.
3. Common Practice Research – Our peer comparison benchmark of
1,000s of your competitors and peers.
The Sales Engine® and SellerNav are trademarks of The ASG Group. The
entire contents of this document are copyright of The ASG Group and
cannot be reproduced in any format without written permission.
Would you like help in tackling your sales challenges? Contact us at:
enquiries@theASGgroup.com
www.theASGgroup.com
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© The ASG Group 2012