Chapter 9 — Resources

Where Value Lives • Chapter 9 Companion

From Value Proposition to Value Evidence

A value proposition tells the customer what we believe is valuable. Value evidence helps the customer recognise whether that value actually exists.

Welcome to the Chapter 9 Companion Page

Businesses devote enormous effort to creating value propositions.

We refine the language. We develop benefit statements. We create presentations explaining why our solution is faster, better, safer, simpler or more efficient.

But there is a fundamental difference between claiming value and demonstrating value.

If value exists in the customer’s mind, the strongest evidence is not what the supplier says about itself. It is what the customer can observe, experience, measure and recognise.

That moves the strategic conversation from:

“Here is why our solution is valuable.”

to

“What changed in the customer’s world, and how do we know?”

Fred’s Comments

The Customer Does Not Have to Believe Our PowerPoint

There is a peculiar habit in business that I have always found fascinating.

We decide something is valuable.

Then we create a presentation explaining why it is valuable.

Then we present it to the customer.

And if the customer remains unconvinced, our instinct is often to improve the presentation.

Perhaps we need another slide.

Perhaps the benefit statement needs sharpening.

Perhaps we need a better ROI calculation.

Perhaps the salesperson needs to communicate the value proposition more persuasively.

Sometimes that may help.

But there is another possibility.

Perhaps the customer simply does not recognise the value we are claiming.

That is a much more uncomfortable possibility because it moves the problem away from communication and towards evidence.

Suppose we tell a customer that our solution improves efficiency.

Fine.

What became more efficient?

For whom?

Compared with what?

How would anybody know?

What was happening before?

What happened afterwards?

And, crucially, does the customer regard that change as important?

Those questions transform the conversation.

We are no longer trying to make a stronger claim.

We are trying to establish a stronger chain of evidence.

This matters particularly in Strategic Account Management because value is rarely experienced by a single person.

A procurement director may recognise one form of value. An operations manager may recognise another. A finance director may want evidence that neither of them uses. An end user may experience something entirely different again.

So value evidence is not simply a collection of impressive numbers.

It is evidence that connects something we have contributed to an outcome that matters in the customer’s context — and that the customer themselves can recognise.

The difference sounds subtle.

Commercially, it is enormous.

— Fred

“A value proposition is what we say. Value evidence is what the customer can recognise.” — Where Value Lives, Chapter 9 Companion

Key Takeaways

  • A value claim is not evidence of value. Supplier confidence does not automatically create customer recognition.
  • Translate product and capability claims into the customer outcomes they are supposed to create.
  • Ask what would actually change in the customer’s world if the claimed value were real.
  • Establish evidence wherever possible rather than relying solely on assertion, anecdote or supplier-generated calculations.
  • Different stakeholders may recognise different forms of value from the same initiative.
  • Baselines matter. It is difficult to demonstrate improvement if nobody captured what was happening beforehand.
  • Separate direct evidence from inference and assumption.
  • Do not wait until renewal or contract negotiation to ask whether the customer recognised the value.
  • The strongest value conversations are built with the customer rather than presented at them.

Chapter 9 Download

Value Evidence Workbook

The Value Evidence Workbook helps you move from supplier claims to customer-recognised evidence of value.

Use it with one live account, initiative or proposed solution to identify the customer outcome, determine what evidence would demonstrate that outcome and establish whose recognition actually matters.

Download the Value Evidence Workbook

PDF companion resource • Chapter 9 of Where Value Lives

Questions to Take Back to Your Account Team

  1. What are the three most important value claims we currently make to this customer?
  2. For each claim, what should actually change in the customer’s world if the claim is true?
  3. What evidence could the customer observe or measure?
  4. Which customer stakeholders would recognise that value, and would they all define it in the same way?
  5. Where are we currently relying on assertion rather than evidence?
  6. What baseline information should we capture now so that future improvement can be demonstrated credibly?
  7. What evidence would the customer themselves trust?
  8. When did we last ask the customer what value they believe has actually been created?
  9. If the customer challenged us today to prove the value we claim to create, what evidence could we put on the table?

Try This With AI

AI can be useful here as a sceptical reviewer. Instead of asking it to write a more persuasive value proposition, ask it to challenge whether the proposition is actually supported by customer-recognisable evidence.

Act as a sceptical Strategic Account Management value-evidence reviewer. I will give you information about one customer, one initiative and the value we believe we create. Customer: [Insert customer] Customer context / priorities: [Insert] Our solution, service or contribution: [Insert] Our current value proposition: [Insert] Outcomes we claim to create: [Insert] Available evidence: [Insert] Customer feedback: [Insert] Relevant measures / KPIs: [Insert] Stakeholders: [Insert] Analyse the information WITHOUT trying to make our proposition sound more persuasive. 1. Extract every explicit value claim we are making. 2. For each claim identify: – the customer outcome being claimed; – the stakeholder who should experience it; – what observable change should occur; – what evidence would support the claim. 3. Classify the support for each claim as: – DIRECT CUSTOMER EVIDENCE – JOINTLY OBSERVED EVIDENCE – SUPPLIER-GENERATED EVIDENCE – REASONABLE INFERENCE – ASSUMPTION – NO EVIDENCE PROVIDED 4. Identify claims that sound persuasive but are weakly evidenced. 5. Identify where baseline evidence is missing. 6. Identify stakeholders whose definition of value may differ from ours or from other customer stakeholders. 7. Identify what evidence the customer is most likely to regard as credible. 8. Suggest questions we should ask the customer to test whether they actually recognise the value. 9. Identify evidence we should begin collecting now. 10. Produce a simple evidence chain: CUSTOMER PRIORITY → OUR CONTRIBUTION → CUSTOMER OUTCOME → OBSERVABLE CHANGE → EVIDENCE → CUSTOMER RECOGNITION 11. Finish by answering: “If this customer challenged us to prove the value we claim to create, what could we prove today — and what are we merely asserting?” Do not invent customer facts, results, savings, percentages, ROI, performance improvements or stakeholder opinions. If evidence is missing, state clearly that it is missing.

Tip: This prompt becomes considerably more powerful if you give the AI actual meeting notes, customer feedback, KPI information and before-and-after data rather than relying on your existing sales language.

Keep Exploring Where Value Lives

Value evidence helps establish what the customer can recognise.

But in a strategic relationship, creating that value is rarely the work of one account manager acting alone.

Who inside our own organisation must be brought together to create the outcomes the customer values?

Chapter 10 turns to the Strategic Account Manager as a Value Orchestrator — coordinating expertise, attention, relationships and organisational capability around the customer’s world.

← Back to Chapter 8 Continue to Chapter 10 →