An honest map of the options, what each format is good at and where The Proposition fits among them.
A value proposition workshop is a facilitated session, or a short series of them, in which a company decides what it offers, who it offers it to and why that buyer should choose it over the alternatives in front of them. The good ones end with a stated proposition, the evidence that supports it and the language the team will use to say it out loud. The weaker ones end with a workshop output that reads well internally and never survives contact with a real buyer, which is the difference worth asking about before you book one.
Ask any of them how the proposition gets tested. Some formats produce a proposition the leadership team agrees on in a room, which tells you what the company believes about itself. Others test it against the people who actually buy, which tells you what the market will pay for. Both have their place, and knowing which one you are buying is the thing that decides whether the output survives the first quarter.
The second question worth asking is who runs the session. In the larger firms the person who sells the work and the person who delivers it are often different people, and that is worth knowing in advance rather than discovering on the day.
Our workshops sit on top of buyer research rather than replacing it. We interview the people who buy from you and the people who chose somebody else, then run the session with what they said in the room, so the proposition you leave with has already survived the audience it was written for. The interviews are run by senior journalists, which is how we get candour out of people who have no reason to give it to a supplier.
The work is led by Dan Ilett, who interviewed CEOs at the Financial Times before advising IBM, Microsoft, Google and Cisco. Clients include IBM, Nordea, Virgin Money, Cognizant and BBVA, and the sales teams we have equipped have gone on to close more than $1bn in new revenue. If a different format on this page suits your situation better, we will tell you that in the first conversation.
Proposition development and company messaging covers the longer engagement. The sales pitch audit covers the pitch that carries the proposition into the room.
The UK market splits into large consultancies running proposition work inside bigger transformation programmes, specialist positioning firms running short workshop formats, and independent consultants working directly with founders. The Proposition sits in the specialist group and works with B2B technology firms selling to senior buyers.
A single workshop usually runs a day. Where the proposition has to be tested against real buyers rather than agreed in the room, the work runs over several weeks with buyer interviews between the sessions.
A stated proposition, the evidence behind it and the language your team uses to say it. The useful ones also produce a record of what was rejected and why, so the argument does not get reopened every quarter.
Where you can reach them, yes. A proposition agreed by an internal group reflects what the company believes about itself, and a proposition tested against buyers reflects what the market will actually pay for.
Tell us what you are selling, who you are selling it to and when the next pitch lands. We will tell you inside thirty minutes whether an audit is the right thing for you and what it would involve.