In my last few posts, I’ve been talking about how to take all that work you did to create your Persuasive Persona, identify your Ideal Client Avatars, and do a deep competitive analysis of your market and turn all that material into the kind of positioning that sets your educational consulting business apart from everyone else in your field.
We’ve discussed the key understanding and mindset shift of focusing on different instead of better.
And in my last post, I gave you three specific ways to go about creating that “different” positioning:
- Differentiate by “Niching Down”
- Differentiate through Your Story
- Differentiate through Your Process
Today, I’m going to share with you a simple tool that will help you see all kinds of other possibilities for setting your business apart from your competitors, as well.
This tool is called “The Value Equation,” and it comes from business guru Alex Hormozi’s book, $100M Offers.
Here’s what it looks like:
Let’s break the value equation down in plain language.
I think you would agree that, all other things being equal, your Ideal Clients would love to get a great value when they purchase PD, right?
Well, this formula breaks the concept of value down into its component parts and allows you to focus on one or more of the component elements to create over-the-top value for your ICAs–meaning, they’ll be more likely to hire you than your competitors.
The Four Elements of the Value Equation
Let’s take a look at each of the elements on the left side of the equation:
- Dream Outcome–This is the transformation your Ideal Client wants to achieve as a result of working with you. They want to improve their skills, make their lives easier, and gain status with their students and peers. Key questions: Does your solution do a better job of delivering your Ideal Client’s dream outcome than your competitors? If not, how can you change things so it does?
- Perceived Likelihood of Achievement–This is how confident your ICA feels that you can deliver their dream outcome. They want to know that you’re both knowledgeable and trustworthy. Key questions: Are you more credible than others in your field who claim to deliver the same kind of transformation as you do? Do you have a track record of success in delivering these results?
- Time Delay–This is how long it takes to achieve the desired transformation. Key questions: Can you deliver the transformation more quickly than your competitors? Can you give your ICAs some quick wins very early in your relationship with them?
- Effort and Sacrifice–This is how easy or difficult it will be for your ICA to achieve the desired transformation. I’m not saying that your ICA is lazy or anything, but all else being equal, we all prefer to get our desired result with as little work as possible. Key questions: Can you do something that makes the achievement of the transformation easier for your ICAs? Can you do certain parts of the work for them?
Now, there’s a reason that Hormozi presents the value equation as a mathematical formula. The top part of the equation are elements that you want to increase as much as possible. You want them to be confident that they’re going to achieve the dream transformation they’re looking for.
The bottom half of the equation are elements you want to decrease as much as possible. The faster and easier it is for your ICA to get the transformation they want, the more value they see in your offer.
You can do a better job of addressing the Dream Outcome part of the equation by really knowing in detail what your ICA’s problems are and what their aspirations are. This is where all that Ideal Client Avatar building you did comes in handy. Show them that you understand their challenges better than your competitors do, and that increases your value in their eyes.
For the Perceived Likelihood of Achievement part of the equation, this is where you make sure you play up the credibility factors (relevant accomplishments, awards, testimonials, reviews, etc.) you came up with when doing your Persuasive Persona work.
But here’s a Pro Tip:
The easiest way to make your offers more valuable to your ICAs than your competitors’ offers is to focus on the bottom half of the equation.
For example, Consultant A might offer great insights about the value of teaching science in a hands-on manner. He might offer these insights as principles to be applied when creating units of curriculum. And he might give some pointers about how to build these principles into lessons.
But what if Consultant B also has great hands-on science curriculum insights and understands the same principles about lesson and unit design to incorporate these principles, but she takes it a step farther and also creates entire done-for-you lesson plans and even entire unit plans for popular science topics that incorporate the principles and gives those materials to her attendees in her trainings?
Which consultant’s offer is going to be seen as more valuable? Consultant A, who provides the high-level concepts but expects the teachers to create all their own materials to incorporate the principles? Or Consultant B, who provides the same conceptual understandings, but also makes the teachers’ work much easier and allows them to get curriculum designed much faster?
Consultant B, of course.
By focusing on the bottom half of the Value Equation, Consultant B differentiates herself from her competitors and positions her offer as the clear value winner.
So, your action step for today is simple. Using the Value Equation, do some brainstorming about how you could make your ICA’s transformation faster and easier than your competitors. And then do the work necessary to alter your offer(s) to include the necessary elements.
OK, we’re getting close to the end of this months-long blog series about positioning. But I still have a couple more tips in my back pocket that I’d like to share with you before we wrap things up.
So, in my next post, I’ll show you how you can establish your offer as unique from any of your competitors–simply by giving it a name.
You’ll want to tune in for that.
Till then…
To Your Success,
Willy
