TES 085 - How to Make Sure People Know Your Value

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there, Mel Abraham here, the author of the number one best selling book the Entrepreneur Solution and the founder of Thoughtpreneur Academy where we teach you how to brand yourself as an influencer so you can have more impact, more income and more freedom. And welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur Solution Show. In this episode we're going to talk about your value. Are you valuable? Here's an interesting story. So I was recently in the middle of a presentation for a board of directors that I sit on and we had a couple of vendors that we were meeting with on a high priced big project that we were going to hire a vendor on, a consultant, if you will. And the last question that we asked each and every consultant was this. Clearly we're talking to a few other people. The question we have is why should we hire you versus them?

And you know, the funny thing is, and the scary thing was is that out of all three of the people that we talked to, most of them had, in fact, all of them had a difficult time answering that question. I'm thinking, wait a second, you came into a meeting that you knew was a meeting with a board of directors, with a committee to evaluate your ability to do work with us, to maybe help us out on a project. When we ask the question why should we hire you? You can't articulate it in a clear, concise, definitive way that sets you apart from the rest. Well, now we've got a problem. And that's what this episode's about. So this episode we're going to talk about something that I call the Value Articulator and the Value Articulator template. You can get the action guide here by going to melabraham.com session 085. You can download it. It'll help you through being able to articulate your value clearly, concisely and definitively when you're talking to a possible prospect. And this is something that I thought that most people would be able to do or that we thought about A lot of times I'm finding out that they don't. In fact, that was a clear indication that we don't. Now, if you're not at your computer and you're trying to get the download, the action guide, just text me, but do it safely. Text me my legacy, one word, no spaces to 38470, and I'll text you back the download link. You can get it when it's convenient and safe to do. And so let's jump into this, because here's what I'm finding out is if we don't get this value conversation right, if we don't understand how to articulate our value in a concise, clear way that's compelling to our audience, you're gonna find a situation where ultimately no one sees you. Okay? You don't even see yourself, and that becomes a problem. And so one of the things we need to think about is how do we articulate our value? The other thing that happens if we don't get right is that people don't have an interest. You know what happens is that people will just kind of walk away and say, yeah, whatever. And I know it's really kind of a brush off, but there's no interest in what you have to offer. There's no interest in the kinds of things that you can do for them. And so they just push you aside in the process. And ultimately there's no sales. You know, we had to scratch our heads after each one of them walked away and said, gosh, do we want to work with someone when they don't know what their distinction is, or when they don't know how to articulate the value that they bring to the table is clearly and definitively. But here's the deal. When we get this right, when you use this framework and you get this right now, all of a sudden you stand out. You're seen by your marketplace, you're seen by the potential folks that are trying to hire you. You're seen in a way that you create the light, the spotlight that you want to shine on. You frame yourself in a specific way. People are curious, they want to know more. They want to understand more about what you do, and they're curious about the way you do it. And ultimately, people buy. And so what we need to do is get this whole idea of value out on the table. To be able to do this in a way that really starts to shift your understanding, shift your audiences, your market's understanding, and to get you to be able to succinctly, distinctly state what it is you bring to the table that's unique from everyone else. So if we're going to do this, what do you really need to do? What do you really need to know? Actually, first, let's figure out the principles that really drive this. And I think the first principle to understand is that the transformation you create drives the value. So a lot of times we get caught up in cost and we get caught up in price and we get caught up in all these other things. But let's focus on the value creation, the transformation. I come into a situation, a lot of times I get hired, especially when we're dealing with high stakes consulting, strategic work, and I get hired as kind of the hired gun, if you will, the person that's there to fix things. Well, when I know that I'm making a shift that's going to change the dynamics and the trajectory of a business, that's going to set the business on a course to have a million dollar a year, a ten million dollar year, twenty million dollar, those kinds of things. The value that I create is high. Therefore, it's not about price and cost, it's about transformation. So what, one of the things we need to understand is what's the transformation you create the true transformation in their business, in their life, how does it land in their life? Because that's where the value is brought from. The second principle to understand is this, is that your possible buyers, your marketplace, the community that you're trying to serve, need to know that you have a process. Now, they're not that concerned about what the process is immediately, but when they understand that you have a definitive proprietary process, and we help people build their proprietary processes in Thoughtpreneur Academy.

When they know that you have a process, it gives them the confidence that you can get the solution, the result for them. And so one of the questions is, do you have a process? Building that process into the conversation gives them confidence. Then the third thing to realize is that there needs to be proof, in other words, your results, to be able to say, listen, you know, for instance, I sit on a board of directors that was a company that was founded, you know, hundreds of years ago, a couple Hundred years, 150 years ago. And we've been able to successfully build that business since I've been on the board from a $20 million revenue company to over $200 million. I've had the opportunity to work with, with people in the thoughtpreneur space, in the influencer space, to build their frameworks, to build their content, to build their businesses and to work that perspective and the results that I've gotten give my clients and my customers certainty. Now there isn't a guarantee, but there's certainty that I can get results with the processes and the intellectual property that I have, the skills, the information that I have. And so one of the things that we need to understand is what, what's the transformation then? What's the process that you have and what are the results of that process? Because that's going to give them confidence, it's going to give them certainty and that's going to give them value. And that's what we need to focus in on in order to do that. Walk you through a framework. I know I got another framework for you, but this is the framework that I call the value Articulator that start to understand how do you put together this statement, if you will. Now some people will call it an elevator pitch, some people will call it a, you know, a value statement or a value proposition. I think that it's actually more than that, you know, an elevator pitch. You know, some of that stuff doesn't have that emotionally compelling perspective to it. We need to be able to speak to our audience in a much more direct, succinct way. And that's what we do with this. So in order to do that, I'm going to go jump to as always, the iPad. We're going to talk about the value articulator. I'm going to complete this for you. If you haven't got the downloadable action guide to kind of work through it with me, download it melabraham.com session8085 that's melabraham.com session085 or text me my legacy. One word, no spaces 38470 and you can, you can get that here. So, so let me jump into.

The iPad and let's, let's see.

About the, the value articulator and what, what it takes to really start to, to build this out. So the thing that we need to do in our conversations is to really understand.

What are the keys that we need to make sure are included in. And the first piece is what I call the who.

This is who's our market.

In other words, who do you help? Okay, I don't help everyone. There's certain people that I, that I work with. There's certain types of people that I work with. So who do you help in there? And be definitive. And if you're, if you're broad based, you're not going to, if you're trying to help everyone. You're not going to help anyone. We want to be much more narrow in that perspective so we can be really clear. The idea here is part of the who is. It filters in the people that are in your wheelhouse, and it filters out those that are not. I want to attract the right clients, the right people into my community. I want to detract the ones that aren't right for me. That's really the way to try and do this. I don't want to help everyone because I can't. The second part of this is the what.

What results? And this is about the results. What results do you help people get? What results do you help people get? Understand that interesting thing is that when you talk about the who and the what together, it's really about.

The problems that you solve. So about understanding those problems that you solve when you get that dialed in, because you're looking at a certain, certain group of people that have, that are trying to get a certain result. And if you have the process in there, that's what's going to solve the problems they have. And then the third piece is this. And this is the how. This is the process.

So I need to build my value out of the who, what and the how in. In there. And if we do this correctly, you understand that the problems are what, what are taken care of with the what and the who. But the transformation, which is what I talked about earlier.

Is between the who and the how. We get transformation by matching the people we work with with the process that works. And that's how we get the transformation. The other side of that is when we look at the what, in other words, the results we get and how we get the results, that's what gives us our distinction in the marketplace, and that's what sets us apart. Now, each of these people, some of them had a process, and they really actually did a great job in explaining the process, but they didn't connect it to the results in a way that gave them distinction in the marketplace. And that's one of the challenges that we have in order to do that. So one of the things that I've done is we've come up with a template, and now I'm going to give credit where credit is due. The first part of this template was something that I was taught by a good friend of mine and one of my mentors, Brendon Burchard. And he talks about when you're going to articulate what you do. He says, he calls it the XYZ formula. You Know, I help X do Y, so that Z. And so I'm going to bring this.

Back so you can, you can see how this plays out. I help X and do Y. So that's Z. And what I've done is I've added something on this because it's great to be able to say I know who I help to do what, which is the why, so that they can have a certain result, which is the Z. But how do I do it? Distinctly, I want to bring that distinction in, to raise the value that in the eyes of the consumer. So what I did is I added onto it this concept of saying unlike A because of B and A and B is how you articulate your distinction in the market marketplace. So let's look at this in this context. I help X. X being who do you help? And that's the who part of the framework. Do Y, which is what do you help them with? What do you help them with is kind of the results. So what do you help them with? So that Z, which is really the result you help them get. Okay, so.

X is who Y is the problem in the result, and Z is the result. Then I say unlike A, which is what are the customer alternatives? So for instance, they can go to any other business consultant or strategist, they can go to any other person that works with entrepreneurs. So they've got, in my case, they can go to other alternatives. So I want to state those alternatives. But I say unlike those alternatives because I have a unique distinction and state my distinction, which is the B. So hopefully that makes sense. I'm going to give you some examples to really bring this home. And because the reality is that this one sentence, if either one of those, any of the three of them came out when we asked the question why you versus them? And they said, I help X do Y, so that Z unlike A because of B, man, they would have nailed it. And that's the thing that we're missing out there is being able to articulate our distinction and our value in a succinct, valuable way that connects with our audience. So let me give you a couple examples and then that's the work that you're going to need to do, is you going to need to take this template, download it if you haven't done so already, @melabraham.com session 085. So you've got this. Fill this in, get used to it, be able to rattle it off, be able to know what it is you do. So I'm going to give you A couple of examples. This one is an example. These are all examples that I use, depending on the context, depending on the audience. This is when I'm working with thoughtpreneurs, working with people that want to become influencers, people in the expert space. I help experts position themselves as influencers so that they have more impact, income and freedom. Unlike many focused on marketing only, we build it through the depth of their knowledge and their content. So what I did is I said, here's who I work with, here's what I help them do. I don't do it like the rest of them that are solely focused on marketing. We're going to do it from the content out, the knowledge, the wisdom out. And we come at it with that distinction. So that's one example. Let me give you another example. This is an example. When I'm dealing with entrepreneurs, I help entrepreneurs create meaningful and profitable businesses so that they have financial freedom and peace of mind. Unlike many that are focused on the bottom line only. We build through your values and impacting others in a positive way. Here's the thing. Those of you that know me know that my philosophy about business is that business is about improving the human condition. The greater improvement we can make to the human condition condition, the greater the value, the greater the profits will have. So it's not about solely focusing on the bottom line. And that's why I've articulated it this way. It's about having creating value and having impact in other people's lives. The bottom line, the profits of a business become the byproduct of those activities. So what I want to do is I want to build a meaningful and profitable business by making sure that it's in consistent alignment with your values, the impact you're trying to have. And so that's why this statement is in there this way. Let me give you one last one to maybe bring this home. This is in my work with valuing businesses and working against the IRS or with the IRS when they're trying to hire me as a valuation professional. And I'm setting myself apart because I've had an opportunity to work on both sides of the fence, whereas a lot of people haven't. So I help taxpayers with valuation disputes so they get better resolution results, unlike many other valuation professionals, because I have worked on both sides of the fence, I've been hired as an expert by the irs. So I know what they do, I know what they're looking for, and I've also battled against them successfully. So a lot of people don't have that experience. And so I'm using that experience as a distinction in there. So I hope these examples start to bring this home to you. Here's what I need you to do now though, is I need you to download the value articulator template. I need you to fill in the blanks. It's just fill in the blanks. Let's get your value articulated in a way, in a succinct way that you distinctly set yourself apart from the people in your space. Get it, rehearse it. So you have got it embedded into your being. So when someone says, what do you do? You can just rattle it off and let it flow, depending on context. And it allows you to use that to your benefit and set you apart. So I hope that you found this of value. I hope that this serves you and helps you at a much greater level and you don't find yourself in a meeting like those consultants did, not being able to say why people should work with you. I want you to know why you're so valuable out there. I want you to know why you're distinct and why people should work with you versus anyone else. So hope you found this of value. And if you haven't done so already, make sure you subscribe. Stay with me. More tools, more templates, more strategies to build your success, your wealth, your entrepreneurship, your thoughtpreneur business, your influence in the marketplace. That's the way I get a chance to mentor you in this process. You know, if you have a question for me or you're got something that you want me to maybe help out with and I can bring it on one of my episodes, just go to askmelnow.com leave me that message. Record that message for me. We'll make sure that we get it out there and see if we can support you and help you as best possible in doing that. And if you haven't done so already, let's have a dialogue. Leave me comments. Let me know what you think of this. Leave me comments. And then also share this with a friend. So I know I'm asking a lot of you, but just share it. Subscribe, leave me comments. That's it. Hope you found this value. Look forward to talking to you in the next episode of the Entrepreneur Solution Show. Until then, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant. See you soon. Cheers. Bye.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure you subscribe so you get access to all of Mel's business and success tips. And if you like this episode, share it with a friend. If you have a specific business or success question, you can ask it at www.askmelnow.com. remember, it's all about being bold, dreaming big, and living life your way because the world needs you. Until the next episode, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant.

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