Business Core · Value Proposition · Module
Proof
What makes the claim believable to someone who has not bought yet. Evidence does the work adjectives are usually asked to do.
The idea
How it works
Every claim creates a question about whether it is true. Proof is what answers it, and the size of the proof needs to match the size of the claim and the risk the buyer is taking.
Different proof works for different buyers. A reference from a peer organisation, a trial, a guarantee and a published number are not interchangeable, and which one is needed depends on what the buyer is afraid of.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
List the claims
Take the proposition apart into the individual assertions it makes. Each one is a separate question in the buyer’s mind.
- 02
Identify the risk behind each
What the buyer is afraid will happen if the claim is wrong. That is what the proof has to address.
- 03
Match proof to risk
A trial answers “will it work here”; a reference answers “has this worked for someone like me”; a guarantee answers “what if it does not”.
- 04
Find the unproven claims
Claims with no proof behind them are the ones sales conversations stall on. They are usually knowable.
One level in
The components of proof
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
Where a claim has no proof, the honest options are to obtain some or to stop making it. Repeating it more confidently is the third and worst.
The other modules in value proposition
Customer jobs and pains
What the customer is actually trying to get done, and what makes it hard. This comes first, because a proposition written before it is a guess with a confident tone.
LearnThe offer
The products and services, and specifically how each one relieves a pain or creates a gain. The connection is the content; the list alone is a catalogue.
LearnDifferentiation
Why this offer rather than the alternatives, including doing nothing. A proposition that would read identically over a competitor’s logo has not differentiated anything.
Learn