Why your value proposition sounds like everyone else's (and it's killing your sales)
A step-by-step framework for creating messaging that makes your company the obvious choice
👋 Hi! It’s Jennifer. Welcome to my fortnightly newsletter where I challenge conventional business wisdom to help you become a different kind of thinker, leader and operator.
Did a friend forward this to you? Subscribe below to get my emails directly in your inbox.
Read time: 6 min.
A great company is useless if no one understands what you do or what makes you different.
Last week, I was reviewing the websites of several wealth management companies for a project.
They all sounded more or less the same:
Company 1: "Making complex simple. Gaining control of your entire wealth."
Company 2: "Wealth management centered around you."
Company 3: "Personalized advice for what lies ahead."
These statements sound nice in the boardroom, but mean little to the people who might actually be buying from them.
Each example misses a clear reason to choose one company over the other.
This disconnect happens when companies confuse having a strategy with knowing how to communicate it.
The missing link between strategy and execution
In an earlier piece, I discussed why every company needs a positioning strategy.
Positioning defines who you serve and how you win. It's your strategic decision about where to compete.
Messaging brings that positioning to life in words your customers understand. Your value proposition and unique selling points are part of messaging.
Messaging should be done after you've finished your positioning strategy because the two hang together.
When positionoing and messaging are disconnected, your company ends up with a value proposition that blends into the crowd.
And this is how a wealth management company can promise to “make complex simple” without ever explaining what specific complexity they’re actually simplifying.
Why most value propositions sound so generic
In my experience, most value propositions are crafted by committee.
This is where a bunch of stakeholders gather in a room and give input into what they think the value proposition of a company or product is.
The sales director wants to emphasize ROI. The product manager insists on highlighting technical capabilities. The CEO adds something about company values.
And Marketing tries to make it all sound more “professional” and “on brand”.
When it’s all said and done, what you have is consensus messaging that could describe any company in your space.
“Grow faster and work smarter.”
“So simple anyone can use it.”
“Making complex simple.”
These phrases survived committee review because they please everyone. They also persuade no one.
Inside-out vs. outside-in messaging
Another problem plaguing the development of a good value proposition is when you approach it from inside-out.
An inside-out strategy is where companies highlight what they’re proud of—features, technology, processes, and internal strengths.
The logic goes: if we talk about what makes us different, customers will see the value.But what happens is that you end up creating abstract promises that sound polished but empty.
Here are a couple of examples:
“Our innovative platform delivers transformational customer experiences through AI-powered personalization.”
“We provide comprehensive wealth management solutions that leverage advanced analytics to optimize financial outcomes.”
To people inside the company, these lines sound smart. To customers, they're just noise.
If you think about it, customers don’t talk like that.
They describe problems in plain terms:
“Our sales team can’t keep up with leads.”
“I need to cut my tax bill.”
“I’m drowning in data and can’t find anything.”
An outside-in strategy flips the perspective.
Instead of starting with your strengths, you start with the customer’s reality. You look at the problems they’re trying to solve, the words they use, and the outcomes they care about. Then you connect your offering to those needs in their language.
Watch how those same problems look when you translate them from inside-out to outside-in messaging:
Problem: “I need to cut my tax bill.”
❌ Inside-out: “Making complex simple. Gaining control of your entire wealth.”
✅ Outside-in: “We help high-net-worth individuals reduce their tax bill by 30% without changing their investment strategy.”
Problem: “Our sales team can’t keep up with leads.”
❌ Inside-out: “Our platform delivers innovative customer engagement through AI-powered personalization.”
✅ Outside-in: “We help B2B sales teams follow up on every qualified lead without adding headcount.”
Problem: “I’m drowning in data and can’t find anything.”
❌ Inside-out: “Our advanced platform improves information accessibility and knowledge management.”
✅ Outside-in: “We help IT leaders find the exact data they need in seconds instead of hours.”
See the difference?
The inside-out versions sound vague and self-congratulatory.
The outside-in versions echo how customers actually think about their problems and spell out the outcome they care about.
Pro tip: Messaging strategist Emma Stratton calls this the “BBQ test.” If you can’t explain what you do in simple terms to someone at a barbecue, your messaging needs work.
A framework for customer-driven value propositions
Creating outside-in messaging isn't complicated, but it requires discipline to focus on your customer's perspective instead of an internal perspective.
Step 1: Understand how customers describe their problems
Before you write a single line, understand how your ideal customers think and talk about their challenges.
The best source is customer interviews, but they need to be conversations, not surveys. You want to hear how people speak when they’re not trying to impress anyone.
Other sources include:
Recorded sales calls. What questions do prospects ask?
Support conversations. What problems keep surfacing?
Reviews and testimonials. How do customers describe results in their own words?
Look for patterns in how they describe both problems and desired outcomes. Their exact words matter more than your polished interpretation.
Step 2: Find patterns in what matters most
Not all problems deserve equal weight. The best value propositions focus on problems that are urgent, costly, and recurring.
Urgent problems demand attention now.
Costly problems drain money, time, or opportunity every day.
Recurring problems persist despite short-term fixes.
The overlap is where your messaging should focus. Resist the urge to “upgrade” customer phrasing.
If they say they’re “overwhelmed by data,” don’t change it to “experiencing information overload.”
The plain version connects better because it’s real.
Step 3: Map your unique strengths to their highest-pain problems
Now connect what you do best to what they need most.
The key is specificity.
This isn’t about listing every feature. It’s about zeroing in on the specific capabilities that solve their most painful problems.
Use their language for both the problem and the solution. Be specific about what changes when they work with you.
To find out if you’re on the right path, use this simple test. Ask yourself - Can a competitor make the same claim with a logo swap?
If yes, you’re not specific enough.
Step 4: Resist the committee urge
This is where many companies stumble.
Once customer-driven messaging is drafted, the instinct is to “improve” it through internal feedback.
The sales team wants to add more benefits. Product wants to highlight extra features. Executives want to make it sound more sophisticated.
Resist this urge.
Your customers don’t care if the messaging sounds impressive to your colleagues. They care if it sounds like you understand them.
When an someone says “That’s not how I’d phrase it,” the right answer is “How do our customers phrase it?”
When someone wants to add another feature, ask “Which customer problem does that solve?”
Messaging should be tested with customers, not committees. If it makes sense to the people who might buy from you, it’s working.
Why customer-driven messaging works
Messaging is the single biggest factor in whether people convert. It’s what grabs attention, shows you understand their pain, and makes them curious about what you offer.
When you start with customer language and customer problems, everything gets easier.
• Customers feel understood right away.
They don’t have to translate corporate speak into their own reality.
• Sales conversations flow more naturally
This happens because they feel like you “get them” and your messaging show how you can solve their problem best.
• Marketing cuts through the noise
When you base your messaging and unique selling points on customer input and your positioning, you are no longer repeating the same vague promises as everyone else.
The result is messaging that feels less like marketing and more like a real conversation.
And this, in turn, this builds trust. Trust turns into sales.
How leaders can add value
As a leader, your role isn’t to wordsmith the final message.
It’s to make sure the process begins with the customer’s voice. Before giving feedback, ask to learn the research behind the draft:
What did interviews reveal?
What patterns showed up on calls?
How do customers describe their problems?
If you understand the customer perspective first, your feedback becomes far more useful.
Next steps
The path to customer-driven messaging starts with one customer conversation.
Ask them to describe their biggest challenges in their own words. Listen carefully. Pay attention to what they emphasize and what they dismiss.
Then compare that language to your current messaging. See how it changes when you replace your words with theirs.
You’ll be surprised at how different your value proposition sounds when it starts with their problems and not your solutions.
