How to Write a Compelling Value Story
Ed Arnold is a Senior Advisor at Ibbaka. See his Skill Profile on Ibbaka Talent.
Ed Arnold has been a product leader at Forrester Research and LeveragePoint. He is an expert on value-based pricing and go-to-market strategies for digital products. Ed is a speaker at the upcoming Professional Pricing Society Spring 2022 Pricing Conference in Chicago April 26-29.
In my last blog I asserted that telling a good value story to your customers beats an ROI claim in terms of capturing their attention and generating interest. Today I want to emphasize the “good'' aspect because nobody wants to listen to a long-winded and dull storyteller. Boring stories certainly do not advance the sales process!
There are many ways to tell a bad story. For example, a story that is centered around your company’s long glorious history is usually a nonstarter. So are hour-long canned product demos based on a use case that bears little resemblance to your prospect. And so on.
Storytelling is a craft; and like all crafts, it requires a fair amount of learning and practice and has its own tools. Who better to learn from than the best storytellers of our time, namely Hollywood? Whether you’re a fan of classic blockbuster movies like Star Wars, Jaws, Batman, or lesser known gems, many of them use a common storyline known as “the Hero’s Journey” first described in a book by Joseph Campbell as well as other writers.
The Hero’s Journey describes a series of stages that the main character (hero or heroine) passes through during each major act of the story: from the beginning (set-up), middle (conflict), and end (resolution). Although alternate versions of the Hero’s Journey vary in terms of the number of stages and their names, they all follow a similar pattern. Recently product marketers have adapted this as an outline for describing the Customer Value Journey.
Note I said “Customer’s” Journey, not your “Product” journey. That’s the first lesson in value storytelling. You need to make your customer (not your product) the hero of the story. Doing so grabs their attention at the get-go. Alternatively, the hero can be another customer that the prospect can identify with.
Here is how a high-level outline of a Customer Journey Value Story could look.
Act One (Set-Up) - Your customer’s status quo. Things have been going well, but then suddenly a set of unexpected business challenges appear. Your customer contact’s initial attempts to respond fall short and pressure builds. This threat can’t be ignored any longer, outside help is needed. Your solution arrives on the scene and offers to be a helpful guide for their journey ahead. Your customer decides (perhaps reluctantly at first) to move forward.
Act Two (Conflict) - Immediately there are a series of technical and change management issues to be dealt with as your customer begins to implement the solution. Fortunately, new allies are available in the form of your company’s support team and functions you have built into your solution. Issues are resolved and in the process, trust is developed among new and important customer stakeholders. This culminates in an evaluation of whether the solution has actually delivered its promised value in the eyes of executive sponsors. Your customer contact prevails and is recognized as a true hero!
Act Three (Resolution) - The customer’s business is back on track, transformed and stronger than ever. Business results have exceeded expectations. The future looks bright for your customer contact.
Think about how your prospects would respond to a story like that. During my upcoming presentation at the spring 2022 PPS Conference, I will break down this Customer Value Journey into more detail and show how the value model supports it. I will also provide examples and insights for how to adapt the customer value journey for your next product marketing campaign.
I hope to see you during my own journey in Chicago.