- So it's the holidays.
And you have to explain to grandma what your startup does.
I don't know about you,
but when I was in the early days of building out ToutApp,
I would always get this pit in the stomach
when I had to explain to people exactly what we were doing,
because in the early days we weren't fully sure,
we didn't really hone in on the messaging
or the value prop or our manifesto,
but we're just like,
we have this incredible technology
that a bunch of people use,
but we were still trying to hone in on exactly
how to make it go boom.
That was until we developed our core value proposition.
And in this video,
I'm gonna walk you through the four steps
you need to follow,
so you can also create a value proposition.
And when grandma asks you what your startup does,
you're gonna be like, I got this.
Intro.
(upbeat music)
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to Unstoppable, I'm TK.
And on this channel, I help SaaS Founders like you
grow your SaaS businesses faster
with an unstoppable strategy.
If you are new to the channel, welcome,
be sure to hit the subscribe button and that bell icon
because I drop a video like this three times a week,
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And when you hit those buttons, you'll get notified
when I drop an episode with actionable strategies
and tactics to grow your SAS business faster.
If you're already part of our community,
our really fast-growing community now,
so excited about it.
If you're part of our community,
if you're part of my SaaS, go to market coaching program.
Welcome back.
It's so awesome to have you here.
Now, I remember when I was building out ToutApp,
so I built it out over the course of out seven, eight years
and then sold it to Marketo,
Marketo bought ToutApp,
then I worked at Marketo for two years.
This has to be a good strategy,
After two year transformation,
we sold it to Adobe for $4.75 billion,
incredible SaaS journey, but in the early days,
so I built it out in San Francisco
and I lived in Cole Valley and our offices
were at a WeWork in SoMa.
And I don't know if you know San Francisco,
but public transportation is the worst in San Francisco.
So there was actually no good way to get from Cole Valley
to SoMa and I did the math,
like either I go buy another car, pay insurance,
pay for a parking garage in SoMa
because it's only hourly parking or I just take an Uber
and I could expense the Uber ride.
And so somehow the math worked out.
So I took an Uber, this is early days of Uber.
It was such early days of Uber
that you couldn't even tell him
where you were going in the app, you got in the car,
and then you told him, go here.
I'm going here.
Like that's how old school it was.
But this thing happened,
twice a day I would take that Uber ride
and I'd be building out the company.
And inevitably almost every single time
the driver would be like, so like what does your startup do?
Because it was just that really special time
in San Francisco and a lot more people were building
and it wasn't as many big companies there yet.
And so I just struggled with it,
I didn't know how to answer it and I fumbled with it,
but because I had to do it twice a day, every day,
I started to get really good at it.
But later on I found out what I was really doing
was building out my core value proposition,
but I don't know this was baby TK and I was learning it
the hard way and once I nailed it,
instead of fumbling around what we did, I was able to say,
you know, we build software for salespeople.
When a salesperson gets a lead,
it takes eight to 10 touches to convert that lead
to a real meeting.
What we do, our software actually automates those touches
across email, phone, and social.
And that the way you get more opportunities,
you convert more leads and that was it.
And it was super simple, it was simple words
and every Uber driver would be like, oh, that's cool.
And half of them would be like, oh,
I used to be in sales ones.
I don't know why, like that was a thing.
And so that's the power of a great value proposition.
When you actually nail your value proposition,
everything truly becomes easier because you are able
to just nail exactly what you guys do
at every cocktail party, every investor interaction,
every customer interaction
and things just spread a lot quicker.
Your website copy becomes easier,
your email copy becomes clearer.
The things you talk about on stage or for webinars, right?
Your booth, everything becomes easier.
So in this episode,
I'm gonna walk you through the four steps
on creating your value proposition
so yours becomes easier.
If you're excited you can go ahead
and smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm,
let's go to principle number one.
Step number one, step number one is to identify the urgent
and important problem that you are solving.
So for us, it takes eight to 10 touches
to convert a lead to an opportunity.
That's a serious problem.
And not only is it a serious problem,
we found out there was actual budget to solve
that kind of problem.
So your step number one is what is that urgent
and important problem that you are solving?
It's so easy to just jump into, we do this
or our revolutionary software uses AI
to, it's like, whoa, whoa, hang on.
No one actually wants more software.
They wanna solve problems.
And if software solves it, okay, I'm interested,
but we'll have to figure that out.
So what is the urgent important problem with budget
that you are solving?
That's step number one in crafting your value proposition.
Once you've done that then,
and then you'll go to step number two,
and you're still not at the solution, mind you.
Step number two is what is the risk
or cost associated with the problem?
What happens if they don't solve this problem?
What is the risk?
What happens?
How much does it cost them by not solving this problem?
What happens if they ignore this problem?
There's either a risk or there's a cost or there's both.
And you wanna hone in on that
and you wanna be able to articulate that.
For us, we were a little bit lucky
because we would say it takes eight to 10 touches
and immediately the VP of sales
would know there's no way our salespeople
are falling up eight to 10 times manually,
they're just not.
And so that means we're spending money on leads
and we're not converting them.
That sucks,
but it may not be as easy for you and your market,
so you may have to really articulate what is the risk
and the cost associated with this problem
if they don't take action.
That's the second piece of your value proposition.
Now, once you've done these two pieces, mind you,
like you still haven't talked about your software
or your solution or anything like that.
Then you get into what you do.
You say we build software,
and by the way, don't just start with features.
Like we have, you know, email tracking
or we have email automation,
like don't do any of that yet.
Talk about the benefits,
talk about the solution through the benefits.
And then if you need to mention a feature,
then mention a feature.
For example, one of the things that we did
that people just loved is it tracked your emails.
It told you when the other side opened the email,
but that wasn't the big enough problem,
the big enough problem was it takes eight to 10 touches.
They beg enough problem was that
no one does those touches manually.
So we just said, we just do those touches across email,
social and phone automatically and we tee up the rest
and salespeople are a lot more productive that way.
And they convert more leads that way.
So we talked about the benefits
and then hinted at the features,
the fact that we did email or phone automation
or social automation and that's how it all connected.
So step number three is talking about your solution
in the frame of benefits first and then features,
not just features.
And mind you, this is step number three.
Whereas normally as SaaS Founders, we're artists, right?
We get so excited about this amazing technology we built,
we put number three as number one, and then we lose them.
Cause people are like, I don't get it,
I don't even know why someone would use that.
You know, if we were to flip it around and just said, look,
we have a software that helps you send out eight emails
to someone automatically.
You're like, why am I doing that?
You start to see the difference?
I just talked about a feature,
I didn't talk about the problem,
I didn't talk about the cost.
I didn't talk about what it was for,
whereas when I flip it and I say,
well, it takes eight to 10 touches
for our sales salesperson to convert a lead
to an opportunity,
we built software for salespeople
and we help automate those steps
and make sure that they never to forget to follow up.
All of a sudden those eight emails that you're sending
sound a lot more valid.
There is a risk to not doing those.
And you start to understand what the problem is
and you start to assign value to that solution.
That's the power of a core value proposition.
Now, there is step number four,
but before I go to step number four,
which brings this all together because otherwise
it won't work.
Ah, let me just pause here for a second.
If you're starting to see the power of a value proposition,
if you're starting to get some inklings
on what your value proposition is gonna be,
can I just get a yes in the comments below,
also smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
It really likes it when you do that, so do we
and so does my team.
Also, we really love hearing from you.
So if you have question, if you have comments,
if you have reflections on this,
put them in the comments below,
Or let's just put a yes in the comments below, either way.
We just wanna hear from you.
And we respond to every question that you have also.
Also, if you're building out your value proposition,
which would mean that you're thinking about
building out your go to market machine,
you're building out your marketing sales discipline,
maybe in the early stages,
you have some revenues, you wanna grow faster.
This is why I created my SaaS go to market coaching program.
It's a proven program
you can follow with the playbook step-by-step process
on actually building all this stuff out.
So you don't have to go at it alone
without a framework to follow.
It's from 15 years of experience
on actually building SaaS businesses.
I've built them, I've grown them, I've exited them.
And now I teach others how to do it effectively
and coach others on how to do it.
So I'll tell you more about the program in the end,
let's go to principle number four.
Principle number four is none of this will matter,
especially in a sales conversation where it really matters,
not just the Uber driver, right?
I don't need to prove anything to Uber driver,
but when you are in a customer conversation,
you have nailed this all in with a customer story,
a case study or actual results.
What happens when you actually show this problem to people?
You highlight the costs, you tell them about the solution
and they said, yes, what happened to them?
Did their pipeline grow?
Did they close more deals, did their win rates go up?
Did they actually grow faster?
Whatever it may be,
you actually need to share the customer story.
You need to share that customer story,
you need to share the case study
or you need to actually cite the results,
whatever it may be.
You need to do that because that's what'll really
encapsulate the value proposition, right?
So for us, we increased pipeline for people.
We 2X pipelined, 4X pipelined,
we had enough case studies on our homepage
and we just said like, yeah.
And when people work with us, they 4X their pipeline
and you need to have a four or 5X pipeline coverage
to your number anyway, so you need this.
So it became super easy to do this.
So number four is to actually have that customer story.
So to recap, build your value proposition, step one.
What is the urgent important problem that has budget?
Number two, what is the risk and the cost
associated with the problem?
What happens if they don't do something about it?
Number three, what is your solution framed in benefits
and then features if necessary.
And then number four, prove it,
prove it with a customer story or actual results.
You do these four things, you put it in a concise sentence,
you have your value proposition
and that'll help you mobilize a lot of things
when you go to market machine
and they'll help you just sell a lot faster
and grow a lot faster for your SaaS business.
If you got value from this video,
be sure to smash that like button,
if you haven't already, hit me with a yes in the comments.
Also, if you're building all this stuff out,
you want help building out your value proposition?
You want help building out your go to market machine?
If you want a proven framework to follow,
this is why creating my SaaS go-to-market coaching program.
I invite you to apply to join, the better the fit.
The feather is out so, all you need to do
is go to tkkader.com/gtm.
Go there, you'll learn about all the details.
You'll fill out a simple application form,
it'll collect some of your information to make sure
that we can actually help you and you're a good fit.
And based on that, we'll get on a call.
It'll be with me and then we'll talk through it
and we'll bring you on
if we both feel like you are the right fit,
it's been a pleasure and an honor to be building out
this program this year,
we have some incredible success stories coming out
that we'll share with you on the call.
It's been just truly rewarding.
And we're looking to add more incredible founders
to the program because collectively
the more incredible founders we add,
the stronger we are together.
So go to tkkader.com/gtm and apply,
we'd love to have you on if you're the right fit
and at the right stage.
Lastly, if you have a fellow SaaS Founder,
a team that could get value from this video,
please share this with them as well.
You're part of a group, a Slack group,
please share this video, it will mean the world to us.
And lastly, remember,
everyone needs a strategy for their life
and their business, but when you are with us,
yours is gonna be unstoppable.
I'm TK, I'll see you in the next episode.