Business Core · Value Proposition · Module
The 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.
The idea
How it works
The offer half of a proposition is written against the customer half, line by line. Each element of the product should point at a specific pain or gain, and anything pointing at nothing is a candidate for removal.
Most offers turn out to be doing several things at different levels of importance. Separating what customers actually buy for from what they merely accept is the useful outcome of this module.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
List what the offer includes
Everything the customer receives, including the parts nobody thinks of as product — support, onboarding, documentation.
- 02
Match each to a pain or gain
Draw the connection explicitly. Elements that connect to nothing are cost without value.
- 03
Rank by what they buy for
Ask customers which element they would keep if they could only keep one. The answer is rarely the one the company is proudest of.
- 04
Note what is missing
Pains with no matching element are either an opportunity or a deliberate exclusion. Both are worth recording.
One level in
The components of the offer
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
Elements that match no pain and no gain are cost carried for internal reasons. Removing one is usually easier than justifying it.
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.
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.
LearnProof
What makes the claim believable to someone who has not bought yet. Evidence does the work adjectives are usually asked to do.
Learn