Going beyond “what we do”

We all have simple labels for our business or profession:

• Lawyer
• Marketing Agency
• Accountant
• Insurance Provider
• Business Coach

What these simple labels can’t do is differentiate us from our competition. We need a little more information.

So what is a proposition?

A proposition is a simple statement, no more than two sentences, which illuminates what you do in three terms: Audience, Purpose and Mission.

Or, to put it another way, by saying “Who, Why and How?” in simple, elegant terms you can describe your “what”, whilst also differentiating yourself and opening up further enquiry.

An example

The description of Sufu:
An agency specialising in brand messaging and copywriting.

The Sufu proposition:
Sufu helps entrepreneurs and marketers be more persuasive in their brand messaging and copy.
We build strong brand perception, then convert it into lasting brand opinion.

Sentence 1 defines audience “who”, and purpose “why”.
Sentence 2 begins to define mission “how”, but leaves room for the imagination to work and questions to form.

Think about how you might respond to hearing one of these two messages. The “description” is a pure statement, which it’s hard to do much with, other than say “OK, understood”.

The proposition allows you to question me:

“Why entrepreneurs?”
“What do you mean by persuasive”?
“How do you define perception?”
“What’s the difference between perception and opinion?”

And a conversation has begun! That’s what a proposition does, it’s a conversation-starting introduction, rather than one which invites passive acceptance and perhaps no further interaction.