Writing the Value Proposition: Part Five - Selling the Line

“There's no correlation between how good your idea is and how likely your organization will be to embrace it.

Seth Godin

Tomorrow’s online ideas – today.
Find a fresher online idea for your business elsewhere and we’ll improve it.

The new Netregistry value proposition.

We were happy. The bosses were happy. Everyone had signed off.

But we knew for the value proposition to work, the whole company had to be behind it.

A value proposition defines a company. It informs the way we communicate, the way we design products and services, the way the company grows. It provides direction and focus to all business activities. Therefore, the staff needed to buy into the mantra.

Launching the Value Proposition

The marketing team decided to run a pair of internal launch parties to celebrate the new value proposition while communicating the message. Invites were sent out to staff. Posters were put up. Buzz was created.

We knew these launch presentations had to engage a team that would rather be elsewhere. No one likes sitting in meetings or watching PowerPoint, so we were determined to engage and entertain the staff to win them over to this new direction.

With a week to go, we designed three new t-shirt designs to give to all staff at the presentation. These t-shirts contained slogans informed by the new value proposition, celebrating the concept of ideas. “The Idea Factory”. “Ideas are my day job.” Every slogan or concept we dreamed up related back to the original proposition, furthering the same message. If all staff wore t-shirts with these slogans, they would help spread the new style.

But we also knew that most staff wouldn’t understand or care about the importance of four words and a lot of marketing speak. So activities were dreamed up to demonstrate the power of branding. Games with potato chips (taste each one blind and place them in order of brand quality), fun giveaways of temporary tattoos featuring the new logo, cupcakes decorated with the brand. This was going to be fun.

Spreading the Message

The events were a huge success. All staff participated and by engaging their attention (and bribing them with t-shirts and food) they felt excited and included.

This message was pushed further still the following week. Although all staff were now wearing new t-shirts, the external customer was none the wiser. The sales team were encouraged to use new phone scripts utilising the language of ideas. Email signatures were all changed to conform to the new layout with the slogan “Ideas are my day job” at the bottom of every email. The website was gradually updated to redraft copy with a new, breezy style that referenced the same goals.

Throughout the business, all activities were being drawn into line – one message, one defining characteristic of the business.

The response from staff was fantastic. Many said that they now had a fresh outlook they could focus on when dealing with customers. It allowed all staff, old and new, to have a vision of the company that conformed throughout.

It was a long job and as often frustrating. At times, we had questioned ourselves and balked at the cultural changes required through the company to embrace this new plan. But it worked, it was worth it. With one voice, the whole of Netregistry can clearly inform anyone why we are the number one provider of online marketing solutions in Australia.

Four words were all it took.

All the articles in the series can be found here.

• Part One - Customer Perception
  
• Part Two – A Point of Difference
• Part Three – Quantify and Qualify
• Part Four – Crafting the Language
• Part Five - Selling the Line