The Big Question
Questions I get from consultants. And my answers.
Got this question from a reader (great question, thanks!):
“Luk, how could we develop our USP as consultants? How to go about that? Do you consider a USP an essential component of our profile as a consultant?”
A USP – Unique Selling Proposition – is absolutely an essential component of a consultant’s profile. Unfortunately, I often struggle with the way it’s developed or positioned by 95% of the consultants. Let me explain. I am gonna be tough on you...
Most consulting ‘USP’s’ are made of useless, self-centered bragging (sorry to say!)
While many consultants do not succeed in clearly (or not at all) unfolding their true distinctiveness, many others make their cooked-up USPs all about themselves. Most consultants make the big mistake of telling their prospects an inside-in story: what THEIR unique services are, how many years of experience THEY have, and on and on and on. It’s all about bragging about THEIR so-called unique expertise, unique service, unique blah blah blah. The big inside-in, know-it-all self-promotion.
I am always astonished looking at websites from consultants or consultancies. Everybody is kinda telling the same things, so they aren’t unique at all. Consultants seem to sort of copy and paste from each other all the time. Amazing. They are all using the same generic business terms such as growth, transformation, change, digital, etc. in self-centered stories full of empty, pretentious promises and a horrible lack of proof.
USP? Unfortunately not, what they are doing is totally unappealing and pure commodity. And worst of all, they fail to connect the dots of what that means for their clients.
Consultants need to learn to develop clear Value Propositions
I am always surprised that only very few consultants thoroughly understand value proposition design. Instead of a USP, consultants should start elaborating their UVP, their Unique Value Proposition. And they should all have the Value Proposition Design book on their desk, like me.
When I ask consultants to describe their value proposition, in most cases they immediately start explaining to me their ‘unique services’ and/or the way they do business. It seems like a huge contradiction for many consultants: “How am I supposed to grow my business by NOT ‘displaying’ all my expertise on my website, Luk?”
Here’s my straightforward answer: you’ve got to shift the focus from you and your self-proclaimed ‘unique services' to the problems and pains of your clients and prospects.
Your value proposition should focus on your specific audience with their specific, prototypical pain points and the value you can deliver to them to solve those problems. What is it that keeps your audience awake at night (in THEIR language)? Value proposition design is all about going beyond your self-proclaimed ‘unique services’ toward a deep understanding of client value creation. As I always say: it’s not what it IS (inside view) but what it DOES to your client (outside view).
Remember that sentence, it might help you when you struggle with creating an outside-in view. Write it on a big poster and stick it on the wall: It’s not what it IS but what it DOES.
In my webinar from March 2021, I’ve presented a client case study and the way we have developed the client-centered value proposition. You can go back to the resource page of that webinar via this link to read the details of the case study.
And what about your own story, your experience, your background & credentials?
Of course, your inimitable ‘background story’ - the clients you’ve worked with, the knowledge you’ve accumulated over the years, the types of projects you’ve completed - are all part of your overall, distinctive value proposition. Big time!
The big difference, however: instead of self-centered consulting blah blah, you are connecting the dots between your background story and your client-centered value proposition. In other words, what did you learn all those years about those specific pain points of your specific audience that will help them, that will add value to their problem-solving journey. And this background story, therefore, is always problem-resolution focused (and never self-promoting!): what did you learn all those years that can be leveraged by the client to solve their pain/problem?
Your homework as a consultant: crafting an integrated ‘strategic narrative’
Here’s your final homework in one sentence: you will need to craft - what I call - an integrated ‘strategic narrative’ connecting the dots between the client-centered value proposition and your inimitable background story, incorporating your problem-resolution credentials.
My final advice: get rid of that inward-looking, self-absorbed bragging. If you get the ‘strategic narrative’ right, I can almost guarantee you will draw in your audience.
