You will be able to state the value of your product in one of four currencies a buyer already thinks in.
Two sellers offer the same bookkeeping service to the same owner of a small renovation firm in Ubi. The first says, "We'll save you a lot of time and help your business run more efficiently." The second says, "You told me you spend most of Saturday on invoices and supplier payments. We'd take that off you, so Saturdays are yours again, and you'd see your cash position every Monday instead of when the bank balance surprises you." The owner nods politely at the first. He asks the second what it costs.
The difference is that the second seller described value in terms the owner already thinks in. In lesson 1.1 you met four costs a problem can carry: money, time, stress and how someone is seen. This lesson turns them around and uses them to state what your product is worth to one buyer. Stress shows up here as risk, because what a buyer worries about is usually something going wrong.
Money is the obvious currency, and the one sellers get wrong most often. The mistake is quoting an average or a general claim about what "clients typically save", which the buyer cannot check and may not believe.
Use the buyer's own number instead. If they told you they pay S$450 a month for their current system (an example figure), and yours would cost S$300, the saving is S$150 a month, or S$1,800 a year. That number came from them, so they trust it. If the money is in income rather than savings, use their figures too: "You said you turn away about two jobs a month because you can't quote fast enough. If each is worth around S$3,000 to you, that's the number we're talking about."
If you do not know the buyer's number, ask for it. That is a discovery question, and it belongs in module 3's toolkit.
Time is often the currency that matters most to busy people, and it is easy to state vaguely. "Saves you time" means nothing. "Gives you back about four hours a week" is better. Better still is adding what the buyer would do with those hours, because the hours are only valuable for what they make possible.
For the renovation owner, four hours on a Saturday is time with his children, or time to visit two more sites and quote for new jobs. Ask, "If you had those hours back, what would you use them for?" His answer tells you which way to frame it. One buyer values time as family, another as revenue, another as sleep.
Risk is about what might happen if the buyer does nothing. For the renovation firm, it might be a late tax filing, a supplier paid twice, or a cash-flow crunch nobody saw coming because the books were three months behind.
Two habits keep this honest. The first is to talk about how likely the risk is for this particular buyer: a firm with one supplier and simple accounts is less likely to pay a bill twice than one with forty suppliers. The second is to leave out exaggeration, because buyers can tell when they are being frightened into a decision, and that damages the trust you built in module 2. State the risk plainly, let them judge how worried to be, and if you cannot say how likely it is, say so.
Risk also works in reverse, when your product removes a worry the buyer already carries, such as an IRAS query they would not know how to answer, and you can name that relief as part of the value.
The fourth currency is how the product changes the way others see the buyer. A boss, a client, a business partner, a spouse or their parents. Buyers rarely mention this out loud, but it moves decisions, as lesson 1.1 pointed out.
For the renovation owner, status might mean walking into a bank meeting with clean, up-to-date accounts when he applies for a loan, and being taken seriously. For an employee buying on behalf of a team, it might mean being the person who found the tool that fixed the monthly reporting headache. Because this currency is personal, handle it lightly: describe the situation, "you'd walk into the bank with a full set of accounts", and let the buyer draw the conclusion.
Most products carry value in all four currencies, but most buyers care strongly about only one or two. Leading with the wrong one wastes your best point. A buyer with plenty of money and very little time will not be moved by a S$50 monthly saving, however true it is.
Your discovery tells you which currency matters. Listen for the words: "it's costing me" points to money, "I never have time" to time, "I'm worried that" to risk, and anything about a boss, client or family to status. Then lead with that one and keep the others in reserve.
Think of one real buyer you have spoken to recently, or a typical one if you are new. Keep that person and the words they used in front of you for the activity below.
For one real or typical buyer, write the value of your product in each of the four currencies and circle the one that matters most to them.
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