Are You Making or Saving?
There are only two ways to add value to a business - make it money or save it money. And I don’t think you can convince me otherwise. Now, before you pass judgment on how heartless that sounds, realize just how true it is. Here are a few roles you may think serve a different purpose (and they might) but they ultimately tie back to the P&L.
Money-saving:
Employee engagement
Recruiting
Legal
Money-making:
Content creation
SEO
Customer support
If you run an agency, you should already think this way when it comes to hiring for your team. Your best employees know it, they frame their work in terms of what it means to the agency’s bottomline. But for some reason, we don’t treat our own company-wide value proposition in the same way. We make clients guess whether we’ll make them money, save them money - or worse - we claim to do something else entirely. Positioning should do a few things, but if it doesn’t make your value crystal clear, you’re leaving it up to the client to connect the dots. Something most won’t do until their pressured by finance or procurement, at which point you’ve likely already lost.
How to Say It Without Being Tacky
I get it. Nobody wants to say “we build customer portals that make ecommerce brands money” (although you totally could) but here are real examples of how you might tie your service offering directly to real business value.
Original: We design employee experiences for growing companies.
Updated: We design employee experiences for growing companies that improve retention and reduce churn.
Original: We build ecommerce portals.
Updated: We build ecommerce portals that boost customer lifetime value.
Original: We launch MVPs for early-stage startups.
Updated: We launch MVPs that help founders land their first 100 customers.
You’re getting hired to solve a business problem whether you think of it that way or not. Your client may not realize it anyways, but eventually they’ll be asked. Make sure it’s clear what you’re offering and why it’s well worth their investment. If you can’t say how you help them make or save money, don’t be surprised when you’re the first line item they cut.
