This piece was inspired by my participation in The Power of Proposition panel at the recent Pimento Festival of New Business.
I’m indebted to my fellow panellists, Owen Catto, Rachel White and Dan Archer, for an open and insightful discussion about what truly makes a business stand out in a crowded market.
It reminded me just how many misconceptions still exist around what a value proposition actually is and why it matters. Because it’s not just about creating a shiny marketing message. It’s the foundation for how you grow, compete and ultimately win.
What is a value proposition?
“Value proposition” is one of those terms that everyone uses but few can clearly define.
At its core, it’s simple.
It’s the balance between what your customer perceives as a benefit and what they perceive as a cost.
Or as the renowned marketing strategist Malcolm McDonald puts it:
Relative value = perceived benefit – perceived cost.
This means that customers don’t judge your offer in absolute terms. They weigh what they believe they’ll gain against what they believe it will cost them (not just in financial terms, but in time, effort and risk).
If the perceived benefits (growth, efficiency, reputation, peace of mind) outweigh the perceived costs (price, switching pain, uncertainty), they’ll buy.
So the job of your value proposition and marketing strategy isn’t just to lower cost, it’s to increase perceived benefit and make the value gap so obvious that choosing you feels commercially inevitable.
In effect, it’s an understanding of where and how you win.
Why this matters
Whether you’re building a B2B SaaS platform, scaling a consumer brand or expanding into new markets, you’re competing in an environment where products, features and prices can be copied almost instantly. In that kind of market, clarity is your most durable advantage – clarity about who you serve, why they choose you and the distinct value you create for them.
A strong value proposition turns that clarity into commercial momentum. It gives customers a compelling reason to buy, return and advocate.
Too many growing businesses still describe what they do instead of why it matters. They default to generic claims like “We’re innovative.” “We’re customer-centric.” “We deliver quality.”
Those aren’t differentiators. They’re expectations. They don’t tell your audience the specific value you bring to them, or why you’re worth the premium, or are impossible to replace and they certainly don’t make you memorable in a crowded market.
What customers actually want
Across every market I’ve worked in, B2B or B2C, the fundamentals don’t change. Customers, whether they’re buying enterprise software or skincare, ultimately want the same three things.
- A measurable outcome. They want a clear, measurable return. For a business buyer, that means driving revenue or improving margins. For a consumer, it’s value for money or a tangible benefit – a product or service that genuinely improves their life, saves time, or removes friction.
- Confidence. People want to feel secure in their decision. In B2B, that means knowing their choice will stand up to board scrutiny or procurement review. In B2C, it’s the reassurance that they’ve picked a brand that delivers on its promise.
- Ease. Everyone wants a smooth experience. Reliable delivery. Clear communication. Minimal hassle. No hidden effort.
If your value proposition doesn’t speak to these needs and connect back to the tangible impact you create, it won’t cut through.
Commercial or consumer, the same rule applies: the brands that win are the ones that make their value unmistakably clear.
Why so many businesses get this wrong
When defining their value proposition, many teams start from the inside out.
They ask:
- What do we want to stand for?
- What are we brilliant at?
- What makes us unique?
Those are important questions, but they’re only half the story.
If you don’t pair internal clarity with external understanding, i.e. insight into what your customers actually value, what problems they’re trying to solve and what evidence they need to trust you, you end up with something that sounds polished but hollow.
Different audiences value different things. A startup founder, a procurement lead and a marketing director will all define “value” in different ways. Your proposition has to reflect that nuance.
Specificity creates strength
The more specific your proposition, the stronger it becomes. Trying to appeal to everyone dilutes credibility.
When I led marketing for a product consultancy, we faced exactly that challenge. On paper, we looked like every other software firm, offering design, development and delivery. Our messaging was confident, but I knew we could have swapped logos with half our competitors and no one would have noticed.
So we went back to basics. We looked at our best clients – the ones who stayed longest, paid well and referred others and asked: Why did you choose us? What value are we really creating for you?
What we heard surprised us. It wasn’t about our technical skill or creativity. They valued our ability to modernise complex legacy systems that were slowing their growth. Those systems were costing them money every day through inefficiency and missed opportunities.
They didn’t want a “digital transformation partner.” They wanted someone who could fix a very expensive, very specific problem and we could prove we were excellent at it.
That insight changed everything. We reframed our proposition from “we build great software” to “we help large organisations modernise mission-critical systems without breaking what works.”
It resonated instantly. It gave our sales conversations focus, helped us qualify the right opportunities and gave us a language rooted in the customer’s world, not ours.
That’s the power of specificity. Once you stop trying to be everything to everyone, you can start being indispensable to someone.
Make it sustainable
A strong value proposition should give you a sustainable competitive advantage.
That means avoiding the temptation to hang your story on whatever’s fashionable this quarter. If anyone can copy your claim tomorrow, it’s not differentiation.
True advantage comes from building proprietary expertise, processes or knowledge that your competitors can’t easily replicate.
And because markets move fast, you should review your proposition regularly – ideally at least once a year (or more if your market moves fast) to make sure it still reflects your customers’ reality and your company’s direction.
Creating advantage, not just avoiding disadvantage
One of the biggest shifts in thinking for growth-stage companies is moving from avoiding disadvantage to creating advantage.
Many businesses promise to reduce pain:
“We’ll save you time.”
“We’ll make things more efficient.”
“We’ll stop you falling behind.”
That’s useful, but it’s not enough. It keeps your customer not worse off, but it doesn’t make them better off than their competitors.
Creating advantage is different. It’s about showing how your product or service gives customers a commercial edge, helping them grow faster, defend or expand market share, or build a capability that drives future profit.
That might mean:
- Enabling faster time-to-market for new products
- Unlocking customer insight that drives higher conversion
- Building brand strength that increases pricing power
In other words, changing the economics of their business, not just improving efficiency.
It’s harder to do, but it’s also the kind of work that earns trust, secures budgets and creates advocates.
In B2C markets, the same principle applies, just through a different lens. Consumers buy advantage too: gaining convenience, feeling smarter, or belonging to something aspirational that elevates their identity. The strongest brands don’t just remove frustration; they help people get ahead in their own lives.
Final thoughts
Your value proposition is the foundation of your growth strategy. It connects who you are, who you serve and why it matters, but only if it’s grounded in customer truth.
We always advocate for speaking directly to your customers and target audience. Real conversations cut through assumptions and reveal what people actually value, how they make decisions and what would make them choose you over anyone else. Without that evidence, even the best internal strategy is guesswork.
When you build and test your value proposition on real customer insight, it becomes more than a message. It informs your product decisions, shapes your go-to-market strategy and makes every pound you spend on marketing work harder.
If you suspect your current proposition isn’t landing, or you need to build one that does, that’s exactly where we help.
At Open Velocity, we work with B2B and B2C businesses to fix underperforming propositions or build new ones that cut through the market, convert and drive growth. Our Proposition Fit for Growth programmes combine commercial logic with customer evidence to help you:
- Diagnose what’s really going wrong — audience, offer or articulation
- Validate and refine your proposition with real customer feedback
- Align internal teams around a clear, credible narrative
- Integrate everything into a go-to-market plan built for traction
If you’re ready to pressure-test your proposition and build clarity, confidence and commercial impact, talk to a senior strategist today.
