As a start-up you need to clearly define your ‘offering’ (product), know your target audience and create Unique Selling Points (USPs). The main issues to review here are:
• What are you selling
• Who are you selling it to
• How are you positioning products
• What are your USPs
While defining the proposition for The Ethnic Diet Association results were as follows:
Steve explained that for many products breaking the proposition down into sub-propositions can make them easier to sell, so in the above example you notice different features of the VTAs have been highlighted as appealing to different areas of the target audience. Steve also suggested that understanding your company's proposition in relation to the competition is important in order to be create product differentiation, this is achieved by:
- Knowing who does the same thing
- Being aware of directly competing products
- Understanding what features competitors sell on, and therefore what we can
learn from them
- Analysing the market to spot potential niche opportunities
This understanding of your company's proposition and what you do better than competitors defines a company’s 'Core Competencies', Prahalad & Hamel (1990). If you are able to capitalise on these then 'Competitive Advantage', Porter (1980) can be achieved which in turn means a robust strategy for survival can be designed and implemented.
From defining The Ethnic Diet Associations proposition it has been identified that the product is unique from competitors given the bespoke folder/display stand design, bi-lingual format and use of traditional foods eaten by the ethnic target audiences. This exercise also shows that the target audience are in fact the organisations/individuals who educate ethnic populations as opposed to the actual end users.
It was explained that understanding your company's proposition is essential before embarking on the professional selling process, details of this can be found in my next post.
Speak soon, Rowan
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