Why you anyway?
We were up in Brisbane recently and met up with many friends, old and new. One of them asked that age old question: "Why would someone choose you over the many other consultants out there?". A good question, and one that made us sit back and think for a second.
It should be easy right - you know what you do well and you know what you believe your clients like and value about how you work and support them. Well, as we ummm'ed and aaarrrr'ed about it for a few minutes, we thought we better sit back and think about this a bit more.
As our good friend pointed out - in a pitch situation you have only a very narrow window to point out what is special about you (we have spoken previously about the concept of your Customer Value Proposition). If you can't get this across quickly, succinctly and clearly, you may have lost the opportunity to win the new business.
So, upon reflection, we boiled our value proposition down to this:
1. Problem Solved: we solve the problems in your business that so far, you have not been able to.
2. Speed: we deliver with speed - typically 3 to 6 months from engagement to the solutions deployed, benefits realised and savings delivered.
3. Deliver Results: we deliver solutions that actually solve the problem - typically we deliver a 10 to 17% ROI and 20 to 30% costs savings.
4. Support Execution: we work with you through to solution deployment including solution build, training, structural changes and solution stabilisation.
Our good friends feedback: "getting sharper". I think he means keep at it!
For us a timely reminder to keep front of mind what makes you stand out - and are you still delivering on your promise! Take a few minutes yourself to make sure you are too. You may be surprised.
