How to Spot Sucky Value Propositions With the Help of 3 Famous TV Characters
How to see the picture when you’re in the frame.
Admit it, every so often, you visit a website whose value proposition makes you go ‘huh?’ You can’t tell what is being sold because the value proposition is either vague, jargon-filled or self-centered. So you click away disappointed but also relieved because your value proposition kicks ass.
Or does it?
Unfortunately, when it comes to value propositions, we’ve been deceived by the taglines of big brands. ‘Think Big’, ‘I’m Lovin’ it’, ‘Because You’re Worth It’. We see these taglines and we instinctively understand what ‘Think Big’ means in the context of Apple. Because we know Apple.
So we think that what we need is a ‘meta’, nuanced, multi-layered, cryptic and/or clever value proposition on our website.
Why is this a bad idea? Nobody knows your product, service or brand and so they cannot uncover the deep layers and nuance of your value proposition when they land on your website. Even with all this information available, the temptation to be clever, cryptic, funny and nuanced never really goes away.
This article will not teach how to write a great value proposition, instead, it will teach you how to spot sucky value propositions with the help of famous TV characters.
It’s hard to see the picture when you’re in the frame. Here are three TV characters to watch out for in your website copy.
1. The Yoda
Master Yoda is a sage character in Star Wars Universe who dispenses deep wisdom to his Jedi trainees. Some of his famous quotes include:
“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
“Luminous beings are we…not this crude matter.”
Powerful stuff, huh? Who wouldn’t want to sound like an esoteric sage on their website? Isn’t that what prospects like? Vision. Depth. Nuance.
I’m sure you’ve seen many instances of the Yoda-esque value propositions such as:
“Perspective is everything”
“Live. Laugh. Love”
“Breath. Feel. Live. Your time is now.”
The Problem
These value propositions make your prospects go ‘huh?’ instead of ‘Ahaa.’ Instead of opening their wallets and throwing their money at you, your prospects often feel like they need a crystal ball to find out if you’re selling periscopes, tickets to a comedy show or post-apocalyptic gas masks. So they click away.
The Fix
Use your value proposition to communicate what your product is and who it serves. There is no harm in being clear and direct about your offer. If you must make a grand statement in your value proposition, follow it up immediately with a sub-heading that clearly describes your offer.
2. The Sheldon Cooper
Sheldon is the geeky theoretical physicist in the Big Bang Theory who has a penchant for using big words in everyday conversations.
In a conversation with Penny:
Sheldon: (after Penny tells him she slipped in the shower) Not surprising. You have no safety mat or adhesive stickers to allow for purchase on a surface with a low coefficient of static friction.
Penny: What?
Sheldon: Tubs are slippery.
Poor Penny and poor prospects who have to deal with jargon-filled value propositions that are meant to sound smart and ‘create authority’. Such as:
“Ground your CX strategy in Ongoing Employee and Customer Understanding”
“Leveraged solutions to help you harness your business synergies”
“optimizational tactics utilizing the synergy of the ever-fluctuating post-recession market… on your mobile device.”
The Problem
Jargon and difficult words make your website visitors feel like they have to put on their thinking caps and find a dictionary. No prospect has time for that, they’d rather be on YouTube watching cute cat videos. So they click away.
The Fix
Use simple, everyday words that everyone can understand. Always ask yourself if you would use those words when speaking to a prospect face to face at a trade show. Better yet, read your value proposition out loud to a friend and ask them if they understand what you mean. If they don’t, simplify it.
3. The Gregory House
Dr. Gregory House is a narcissistic self-centered doctor who has no consideration for the feelings or opinions of his fellow doctors. House is the classic character that we all love to hate. One of his famous quotes is:
“There’s no ‘I’ in team. There’s a ‘me’ though, if you jumble it up.”
This self-centeredness shows up in value propositions that are all about your business and how awesome it is. These selfish value propositions are characterized by feature dumps and an abundance of ‘I’s’ and ‘We’s.’
“The fastest quadcore processor on earth”
“The highest caffeine content per ounce ever achieved”
The Problem
Prospects don’t care about your groundbreaking product. They most probably don’t even know what a quadcore processor is or why they should care about the caffeine content in your lattes. Simply put, they don’t know how your amazing features can solve their problems. They are thinking ‘so what?’ So they click away.
The Fix
For every feature that you present on your value proposition, be sure to explain how it benefits your prospects. Don’t stop at the first benefit, go for the benefit behind the benefit. If your lattes have the highest caffeine content per ounce, then the benefit is that your prospects get to be more alert. The benefit behind the benefit is “never doze off in a meeting again.”
The Takeaway
Your website’s value proposition is like speed dating. If your prospects do not like what they see, they are likely to click away.
The antidote is always being clear about what your product does, who it serves, the benefits it gives and what makes it different from competing products.
Always test your value proposition to see if it sounds like Yoda, Sheldon or Dr. House. If it does, fix it!
“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
