Podcast:

Communicate Your Value Effectively

I was recently interviewed on a podcast (online radio show) and wanted to share this with you on my website. You can listen to the podcast below or read the transcript.

Full Transcript of Audio Below

We’ve transcribed the audio into text and formatted it for easy reading below. Please excuse any typos or odd wording, as this transcript is taken directly from the spoken word within the audio above. —

You Need a Unique Value Proposition

Interviewer: So Paul before we discuss the specifics on how to actually craft a pitch, can you share the most common mistakes that you see business owners make in regards to their pitch? Paul: Absolutely! You know the common mistake I see is that people don’t have a plan. You know the old saying if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. That really comes into play whenever you start to market.

• It is vitally important before you ever think about marketing is to create a plan.
• So step 1 should be you need to create a unique value proposition.
• The unique value proposition is what separates you from everybody else in the world.

Let me give you an example.

• Let’s say that you are a chiropractor.
• Well, your practice is going to be different from the chiropractor down the street.
• So what UVP or Unique Value Proposition is it that enables you to set yourself apart.
• Maybe you practice nutrition, maybe you practice applied kinesiological technique or maybe you have a medical doctor who works with you.

These are the things that are going to separate you from everybody else. If you are in a business that sells widgets, how does your widget become different and better than somebody else’s?

• Is it that you give outstanding customer service?
• Is it that you’re available 24/7 including Christmas?

Unique Value Proposition has to be thought of before you ever deploy any kind of tactic.

How To Identify Your Unique Value Proposition

Interviewer: And how can a business owner identify what their unique value proposition is? The reason why I asked this is, you mentioned a chiropractor for example, how can a chiropractor really start to understand that this is the reason that I do really well for certain clients and not this other reason. How do you really dig in and actually identify what your Unique Value Proposition is? Paul: The first thing that I do when I coach clients on how to develop unique value proposition is I tell them it’s going to take sometime. Believe it or not it will probably take you about 4-6 weeks before you ever figure out your UVP. And the reason why it takes time is because you do it step by step like you are going to outline. It becomes fail safe and fail proof. Step number 1: What you want to do is take out a blank piece of paper and just ask yourself this question:

• Why would my patients want to come to me?
• If I’m a business onwer, why would my customers want to come to my store?
• If I’m in a service oriented business, an attorney, an accountant, why would my clients want to come to me.
• What do I offer to people to enable them to want, to separate themselves from their money.

So step 1 is your bragging rights. What you want to do is you want to brag every which way that you can as to why your so great and somebody should spend their hard earned money with you. Put that away and let it percolate for a day or two. Step number 2: Ask your trusted friends and family members the same question.

• Why should somebody come to me as a chiropractor?
• Why should somebody come to me as an attorney or an accountant?
• What makes me so great?
• Could you please tell me what you are seeing in my practice,
• What you are seeing in the store,
• What you are seeing in the services that make me shine versus my competitors.

Put that away and let it percolate for a while Step number 3: Take out your list and your trusted friends’ and family’s list and throw out the duplicates and collate the list into one. Put it away and let it percolate for a couple of days. When I say let it percolate for couple of days, think about what everybody has just written. And think about how this positions you to be better than your competitor. Step number 4: Ask your customers the same thing If you are a chiropractor or physician, go ahead and ask your patients;

• Hey Mr./Mrs. patient, I have a favor to ask of you. I am trying to figure out what makes us so great?
• Why do you come to us?
• What do you see that stands out in comparison to other physicians that you have gone through?
• If you are in a service orinted business, you can ask trusted clients.
• If you are in a retail business and of you have regular customers, you can ask them.

If you don’t have “regular” customers, you can take an informal survey and ask people as they walk in through your store:

• Hey Mr./Mrs. Customer. What do you think makes this store stand out in comparison to others?
• What do you like about us?
• Why are you doing business with us?

And that is really a good way of helping you to determine your UVP. Interviewer: I think that was an extremely comprehensive answer and that is exactly what we look for on this interview is the really actual information. To summarize you mentioned:

• “Why would my clients come to me?” That’s the first question you want to ask yourself and then let that sit.
• Then you mentioned asking your friends and family the same exact question and letting that sit.
• Then comparing both of those list together to figure out where are the same answer starting to come up and then the thing that I liked alot in the end is asking clients the same exact thing.
• So by getting all those different perspective, it makes it so that you are getting a really comprehensive look and trying to figure out how exactly the puzzle fits together as to why people come to you.

Creating a Pitch from Your UVP

Can I ask to share an example of a specifically good pitch that seems to fit with why prospects actually come to a certain business? Do you have an example from one of your clients? Paul: I will use mine as an example. So the first thing is that before you actually create a pitch, you want to take that profile you have created – your bragging rights and you want to write it down,

• I am great because of this,
• We do this,
• We do that.

What you are going to get is exactly that bunch of bragging rights. The next step to that is you want to take out the words “I” and “me” and you want to subtitute with “you” “them” or they. In other words;

• Every thing that you do should be about your clients,
• It should be about your patient,
• It should be about your customer.

An Example Pitch

So an example, in my opinion, a good pitch is mine and that is

• “Every business owner wants to make more money and have more free time. Our clients benefit from our 28 years of business experience.”

We teach business owners the

• Skill sets of organization,
• Hiring properly,
• The creation of UVP (Unique Value Proposition) and
• Most importantly, how to use strategic base marketing to drive the best buyers to your door.

Our clients appreciate that we offer 24/7 service and that all emails are answered promptly but mostly our clients love that on average their income has increased %145 since 2008. My name is Dr. Paul Inselman, let us set up either a phone meeting or face to face meeting so you could find out how you can work smarter instead of harder.”

How To Repurpose Your Pitch For Different Situations

Interviewer: It is great to really hear the actual pitch in action and I was looking through my notes to see how was this developed overtime. I can see how some of the specific thing that you called out in that pitch were actually identified during this actual framework in this process that you have went through. So it is really interesting to see that. One thing I want to ask you though is what should a business owner consider when they need to re-purpose that pitch for different situations?

• For example, a lot of people talk about the elevator pitch or for example at a networking event you only have a quick second to explain what you do.
• How can you re-purpose the pitch that you just did to get the point across quickly and also related to this question is how do you actually guide the conversation?
• So you say a 7-8 second pitch and you guide a person to ask you about the next part of you pitch.

How do you condense this but still get the message across? Paul: Well let say that your are in an elevator and that you are a chiropractor.

• You see somebody with Titleist on their cap.
• You can simply turn to them and say “Hey I see that you have Titleist on your cap, are you a golfer?” and
• The person answers “Yes” .
• Then you can simply ask, if there is a way that you can get 30 more yard on your drive, would you be interested?
• That’s going to prompt “Yes, how do you do that?”
• Now you have an opportunity to give your 30 second elevators pitch.
• Basically what I do is I help my patients get more yard on their drive by making sure that their pelvis is aligned. Remember all your power comes from the turn and if you can’t turn then you can’t get enough power.

Interviewer: I think that is an awesome example.

Why Do Clients ACTUALLY Hire You?

Interviewer: It sounds like basically what you are saying is almost ask permission to give your full pitch by connecting it with something that they are obviously showing interest in. In this case the golf example. Paul: Correct.Interviewer: Can you share an example of a client of yours that went through this process and was surprised by what they found? What I am trying to get at is this process that you’ve listed out here seems to me that can bring a light to a lot of things that the business owner listening today might not have been aware of before. So can you share an example of a client of yours that went through the process and realize that maybe they are in a different business than they thought and maybe their clients come to them for a different reason than what they initially thought of? Paul: That is a great question. Case in point, I coach a plumbing company. So when they went through this exercise everybody came up with the fact that:

• They take care of sink stoppages and
• They take care of toilet overflows and
• They take care of leaks and
• Take care of all these plumbing issues but
• When they went through this exercise, they found out that they are really in the business of restoring faith, hope and handling crisis.

So they are in the crisis management business. Think about when you call a plumber.

• You call a plumber when you have a fickle mat of corn all over your floor because of back up. That is a crisis.
• You call a plumber when you have a leak you can’t stop and you have water flowing everywhere. That is a crisis.

So what we ended up doing was creating a whole new campaign noun-ed “Crisis Management With Human Touch.”Interviewer: I think that is a perfect example. I agree and totally understand that the plumber side of things are definitely not in the business of fixing the pipes; they are in the business of fixing the problem and that can be a huge problem.

Summary and Next Steps

So to summarize what we have talked about you mentioned that:

• The Unique Value Proposition is really the starting point of your pitch.
• It’s really important to be able to identify that and craft your entire pitch around that.
• You gave us a really good process.

I want to summarize here in conclusion. You basically mentioned:

• First asking yourself a series of questions that will help you identify that unique value proposition. One of those is asking yourself why your clients come to you.
• The second one is asking your friends and family the same exact question of why clients come to you. Then comparing both of those list to see where the synergies are at.
• Finally asking your clients the same thing.
• You mentioned letting those sit, percolate and thinking about those overtime for a couple of days in between each step to really get your head around it, which I think is definitely a good advice.
• Then you mentioned taking all that information and formulating that into a clear pitch that really speaks to the person that you are actually giving that to. So that is really helpful to come up with your pitch.

And a couple other specific things that you have mentioned is in the context of having a conversation with somebody. If you are not comfortable giving your entire pitch, figure out some sort of connection with the person to actually get permission to give the entire pitch.

• In your example being in an elevator with somebody that has something related to golf and you ask them about if they are interested in golf and making their game better and then you connect your pitch to that.
• Then the last thing I think is a good topic to end this, you might be surprised when you go through this process of what business you are actually in and why your clients are coming to you.

So I encourage you listener to go through the process that Paul shared with us today. You might be surprised at why people come to you and you can use that information to grow your business. To apply what we have discussed today for your business, Paul has offered a complimentary phone call consultation. If you are a physician and want to work with Paul to grow your practice, visit inselmancoaching.com. If you are a business owner, you can visit Paul’s coaching website at creativecoachingllc.net Thank you so much for your time today Paul. Paul: Thank you so much for having me Jon, I really do appreciate it. href=”https://www.timetrade.com/app/td-247373/workflows/jnw2j/schedule/welcome?view=full&fs=1&wfsid=b07a7e14-baba97f6-b07a7e17-baba97f6-00000002-nokdij5q2uis4fnt743rn3ig9137369l” target=”_new”>Click here to schedule a Free 1 on 1 Practice and Business Strategy Session to learn about where your weaker practice areas are; and, to receive a plan of action that you can implement immediately. This is not a sales call.

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