Main talking points include:
Not necessarily talking about financial value (although SOMETIMEs we are)…
What do we mean by “adding value”?
All the things that you can do that go above and beyond for your client. This is important in cementing the relationship with your client as it means that you can:
- Become invaluable to your client, so they won’t look elsewhere
- Get a better internal working knowledge of your client so you can be proactive in offering help / service to them – so it’s not really “selling” any more
- You can adopt the role of “trusted advisor” and be influential in the development of their business moving forward
Implied and applied value…
- Implied value – theoretical or advice-driven value that you can pass to your client, but THEY still need to do something to achieve the results in their business.
- Applied value – something you can do that directly has an implication on their bottom line.
How to provide this value…
For ad hoc projects or projects that you have already completed, you maybe need to view this as part of your business development and / or marketing. For retained clients, this becomes easier and can be added on to your normal monthly schedule with them.
Ways of demonstrating implied value:
- Run an additional report
- Send an example of existing client data (with permission) or a testimonial
- Arrange a coffee and discuss “We’ve just done XYZ for a client and it really worked - I think it would be a good fit for your business too"
- OR… "ABC is brand new to the market – I have no data to prove it will work for you, but my gut says it will. Would you like to check it out?"
- Send a document or SOP
Ways of demonstrating applied value
- Run an A/B test
- Run a simulation (before applying, I supposed this is like implied applied value!)
- Monitor results and make changes on the fly – reporting what you’ve done and the measuring the results
- Send a video or screencast
As a general rule of thumb, applied value is more difficult to charge for (unless you’re on a performance-related agreement), where as implied value can lead to an estimate or a quote for parts of the work you can deliver. BUT you need to demonstrate that value up front with is where applied value demonstrates your skills.
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