Do you read part 1 of this series? If you missed it click here:

The Case for Buyer-Aligned Value Models…Part 1 of 4

The Strategic Importance of Value Models

Whether you sell a commodity product or a complex business solution, a value model is the foundation for your positioning and messaging strategy because it determines how you communicate the purpose, value, and differentiation of your products and services. Like the product-feature-function model shown in Figure 1, value models provide the taxonomy for collecting, organizing, and sharing the marketing and selling knowledge that drives the three critical marketing deliverables that I mentioned in the introduction. 

Figure 1: Value Models Drive Three Key DeliverablesFrom an operational standpoint, value models are a lot like a sales process in that they provide management with an opportunity to reinforce fundamentals and best practices. They also share five other important similarities with sales processes.
 

1. They can be formalized and managed or they can be spontaneous and ad hoc. 
2. They can be seller-aligned or buyer-aligned depending on their perspective and context.
3. Seller-aligned value models reflect the seller’s perspective where value, and differentiation are defined from the inside-out, in the context of the product or service
4. Buyer-aligned value models reflect the customer’s perspective where value, and differentiation are defined from the outside-in, in the context of solving the customer’s problem
5. And most importantly, they don’t require 100% compliance to have an impact on culture as well as results

Unfortunately, while most sales executives clearly understand the importance of managing their sales process, few marketing executives pay much attention to their value model. In fact, most are unaware that there are actually three different value models (See Figure 2) that their organizations can employ, depending on the perspective and context that they want to emphasize.

Figure 2: Three Different Value Models to Choose From 
In the Seller-Aligned Value Model on the left, a product’s purpose, value, and differentiation is defined and communicated through product-feature-function logic. This is a simple, straightforward, and universally understood model that reflects our natural tendency to think inside-out (i.e. it’s all about me). This is why product messages are  easy to create, communicate, and understand, and it’s also why product messaging doesn’t require much management focus or a systematic process… it just happens organically.
 
When companies want to move from selling products to selling solutions however they need to change the way they think about purpose, value, and differentiation. This transition from a seller-aligned to more of a buyer-aligned model does require management focus and attention.
 
The Hybrid Value Model (middle of Figure 2) is what most B-to-B marketing organizations end up adopting when they decide to support a solution based strategy.  The hybrid model combines both buyer and seller perspectives and it supports high level problem-solution messages along with more tactical and explicit feature-function messages.
 
The Buyer-Aligned Value Model on the right is the only model that truly supports a solution focused strategy because it enables high-level problem-solution messages as well as explicit cause-capability messages. Explicitly aligning causes with capabilities is the most effective way to communicate your understanding of the problem as well as your value and differentiation from the customer’s perspective. This is why the buyer-aligned value model has been universally embraced by what are arguably the most solution oriented organizations in the world… pharmaceutical companies.
 
Companies that sell cholesterol reducing drugs for example, focus on educating the market that plaque in the arteries is the key underlying cause of high cholesterol. By explaining the underlying cause before they talk about the solution they build additional credibility. This makes them more believable when they describe how their drug breaks up plaque better than the competition.

In the next posting learn more about the differences between hybrid and buyer-aligned value models, and the simple steps that B-to-B marketing executives can take to catch up to their brethren in the pharmaceutical industry and more effectively support a solution strategy.

To be continued… The Case for Buyer-Aligned Value Models Part 3 of 4 will post Tuesday, March 16.

Want to learn more about Solution Marketing and Buyer-Aligned Value Models for Sellers? Join SPI and Bob Schmonsees for an upcoming webinar: Equipping the Sales Mind of the Future, March 23. To register, click here.