A new era has started at the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce with Chris Sargisson taking over as the new Chief Executive. He speaks to Neil Perry about his plans for the future and how the organisation will grow in the years to come.
When starting a new business venture, a key success factor to establish is your value proposition. It’s also helpful for existing business owners to revisit their value proposition from time to time to help continued business growth.
But what is a value proposition, and how should you go about writing one?
What is a value proposition?
In short, a value proposition is a promise by a company to a customer. It explains:
Your value proposition should be focused on delivering unique and sustainable value to your ideal customer.
Why do you need a value proposition?
As an internal tool, a value proposition helps make sure employees and management are aligned by understanding the benefit the company is trying to deliver. It helps everyone focus on the aspects of the business that make the biggest difference. A strong value proposition can therefore help you avoid wasting time, money and energy.
The right value proposition reveals the connection between your products and your potential customers’ goals. Being clear on that will give you the confidence and clarity you need for continued development and innovation of your products and business processes whilst maintaining profit. It should also give you the basic wording for your marketing messages, focusing on the few things that make the biggest difference.
How to write a good value proposition
Before writing your value proposition, you need to be absolutely clear on why a customer should buy from you. You should have a clear understanding and commitment that your product or service will add value to a target audience. Thinking about the following might help:
Alongside this, make sure you consider all the risks in your business and be realistic with your financial expectations. Return on investment must always be at the forefront, but do not forget the importance of cash flow and the resource time required to administer. However creative you may be, I strongly recommend that you formalise a project plan or sales forecast before you get too far down the road. Key milestones and the introduction of measures will help ensure that you stay on track or adjust to compensate for any deviations caused by obstacles.
Once you’re confident that you have a product or service people want, and is financially sustainable, it’s time to write your value proposition.
When writing your value proposition it’s important to remember that it’s for people to quickly read and understand. So keep it clear and concise and avoid jargon. Try to use the type of language your customers use. You need to address:
Structure-wise, aim for a strong headline that grabs attention, and one short paragraph to explain what you do, for whom and why it’s useful. You may also have a sub-heading, three bullet points or a visual. There’s no set format, just keep it focused.
How to use your value proposition
Having a great value proposition isn’t enough. You need to use it!
Firstly, make sure everyone within the business knows what it is. Then use it to target the customers who will benefit most from your product or service.
Make sure your customers can see it. If it’s carefully considered and well written, put it front and centre on your website homepage – it should help potential customers quickly understand why they should use your company.
You may find that you need one value proposition for your business and then a series of propositions for individual product lines. That’s fine, just apply the same logic to each.
Another Summer comes and the annual Lunch on the Green event took place at Clapham & Collinge Solicitors on Wednesday 12th July 2017. The event was sponsored by Break, an amazing local charity of ours, who provide a range of residential and community based services for vulnerable young people and families across East Anglia. Lunch on the green is such a fab event from start to finish, from being greeted with a cupcake by the helpful and happy faces of Clapham & Collinge, to walking on the red carpet with a glass of wine in your hand. It was great to see some familiar faces such as Lorna from Thrive, Chris from GGS, Michael and Aaron from All Is Flux and of course the lovely Jill from The Space. We also enjoyed talking to The Norfolk & Norwich Association for The Blind (NNAB), hearing about the innovative events they are arranging to raise funds for local blind children. There were lots and lots going on including some pretend money for a game of roulette, a shakespeare quiz by the lovely Sheringham Theatre, spinning the wheel on The Feed‘s stand for some Kettle Chips and discounts and lots of opportunities to win hampers and champagne. It was really cool to see a lot of Tech being used at the event. We took along with us Jacek Lipinski, a sixth form student with us this week for his work experience. Jacek is studying coding and has an interest in tech and software, so it was great to see him getting involved on Sim-fly‘s flying experience and having a close up look at Barclays 3D Printer. When also taking part in Face 2 Face Finance‘s counting money in the piggy jar, rather than writing our names down, we were refreshed to see they had their ipads at the ready, and an email sent to us to confirm our guess! It was also really cool to see Customised UK with their super big smart TV. Overall we enjoyed a catch up with some great people, making some meaningful new connections, seeing a cool lamborghini, lots of entertainment, delicious food and sunshine, a fantastic day organised by Clapham & Collinge.
It’s been a busy few months for as we’ve been out and about gathering business views for the development of our new economic strategy for Norfolk and Suffolk. We’ve held events across both counties, with key sector groups and today saw 75 local authority representatives come together to discuss topics including skills, infrastructure, business support, trade and export and much more. Thanks to all of you who have come along to one of our sessions or filled in our online survey – our strategy team is compiling all of the feedback and the strategy is now being drafted ahead of publication in the autumn. You can find out more on our website at https://www.newanglia.co.uk/developing-new-economic-strategy/
Failed deadline? Compassion, isn’t that letting yourself off the hook?
So welcome again to my blog. Firstly, just to say a big ‘well done’ to everyone that took part in activities for Mental Health Week in May. It was great to see the work that is being done to raise the profile of mental health issues and let’s keep this on the agenda for 2017.
Apologies for anyone who was interested to hear my thoughts on coping with exam pressure. The phrase of ‘I think I missed the boat’ comes to mind but I do hope that you checked out BBC Bitesize, which provides practical and supportive information for young people via their website.
The topic for my blog this month is ‘How do you cope with situations where you don’t meet deadlines, or perform below expectation?’ Do you criticise yourself, perhaps even saying that you have failed or are in fact a failure, or do you adopt a more compassionate approach to yourself?
“Compassion“, I hear you say, “isn’t that just letting yourself off the hook and condoning poor performance?” Believe it or not, it isn’t! As a therapist, I routinely incorporate compassion focused techniques into my work when it becomes apparent that self-criticism, high expectation of self or others or difficulties coping with emotions are part of what maintains a client’s distress. Therapy sessions help clients to understand and develop the skills of compassion, helping them to develop a more compassionate way of talking to themselves and acting when life is tough and doesn’t go to plan.
For me, the first step is to help clients to recognise their tendency to having self-critical thoughts. What situations trigger them and what do they say? I often refer to this as the ‘monster’ or ‘poisoned parrot’ that sits on your shoulder giving you a running commentary of your faults and things to be afraid of. How does this monster sound? How do you feel when you listen to it? How do you respond to it? Does your monster remind you of events or people in your life that have been critical or not particularly nurturing? The reality is yes, that our past life experiences and social relationships will have affected our brains and our ability to be compassionate towards ourselves and others.
So can we change things? Yes, with a desire to want to, hard work and perseverance. It involves understanding what it means to be compassionate and developing some of the qualities of compassion such as empathy, sympathy, forgiveness, acceptance and tolerance, developing feelings of warmth and taking responsibility for our actions.
Compassion focused therapy involves many stages but a useful tool, that I often use with clients, is to consider the idea of a compassionate image. If you could develop a compassionate image, of someone or something that is non-judgemental, warm, wise and has strength, that you could relate to when life is tough, what would this look like? Would they be male, female or even an animal? How would they sound? How would they talk to you and relate to you? If they could hear you being critical of yourself what would they say?
Remember a truly compassionate image or friend is kind and understanding, not dismissive or critical, but also tells you how it is. They help you to acknowledge when you have not achieved things, consider why this is so and help you to take actions to improve your situation. They recognise that we are humans and as such behave as humans, having emotions and making mistakes. They recognise that whilst it’s human instinct to sometimes want to avoid difficult situations, they know that this only makes things worse and they motivate us not only to take action, but also to take responsibility for our actions.
In learning to be compassionate to ourselves we might also want to look at how compassionate we are to others in our life. How do you respond to others when they are in distress, make mistakes or perform badly? How might your new compassionate image respond to others if they were guiding you?
As a therapist and mother with teenagers, I don’t profess to be compassionate all of the time, far from it! But what I do know is that learning to be kind and compassionate to ourselves and others can only be a good thing; it improves our mental health and is therefore something worth investing time in.
If you are in interested in learning to be less critical of yourself and others then please contact me at my website www.feelwelltherapy.co.uk . For more general information on compassion then you might be also interested to look at the Compassionate Mind foundations here .
For now, have a good summer.
Michelle.
“Abrupt changes to quarantine measures will be yet another hammer blow for the fragile travel and tourism industries, both here in the UK and overseas.
“Firms will now have to manage the effects of this unexpected change as returning staff have to quarantine upon their return to the UK. Support measures should be extended to help firms and their employees manage the additional uncertainty generated by this and other government decisions.
“Businesses will be asking why Spain was on the safe list on Friday, only to be taken off it on Saturday. Changes to quarantine rules must be communicated clearly by Government with as much notice as possible. Continued improvement of the test and trace programme, alongside co-ordinated checks at departure and arrival airports, could alleviate the need for many of these restrictions.”
Commenting on the government’s new proposed processes for moving goods from the UK to the EU from January 1st 2021, published today, BCC Director General Dr Adam Marshall said:
“With full border controls in place at all ports from January 1st next year, regardless of any deal that is agreed with the EU, and an estimated 200 million more declarations needed to be made by traders annually, firms that import and export to the EU should take action now and prioritise the appointment of customs intermediaries to advise on the next steps.
“It is pleasing to see the government listening to the Chamber network and reintroducing Postponed VAT Accounting, as well as allowing the deferment of duty and VAT on EU imports for at least 6 months from January 2020. And many businesses will appreciate the introduction of bond-free duty deferment accounts, which will provide much needed help to cashflow for businesses and reduce import costs.
“While businesses will welcome more detail on processes for trading goods overseas, some questions still remain unanswered, including on trade across the Northern Ireland border and the operation of the Goods Vehicle Management System. We will continue to look at the detail and how it affects businesses over the coming weeks.”
This is the first column that I have written on behalf of the Norfolk Chamber for the EDP as it normally falls to our CEO to come up with some interesting words of wisdom, so please bear with me. It has been a hectic couple of months at the Chamber with Caroline Williams MBE our CEO for 17 years standing down last week and the recruitment and appointment of our new CEO Chris Sargisson, all at a time when the political world has gone into overdrive.
It was interesting when recruiting for the role of CEO of Norfolk’s leading business organisation, as the position attracted all kinds of people, and we were lucky enough to have a huge amount of interest. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who applied and showed interest in the Chamber in particular those candidates who we interviewed and shortlisted. There is a real passion within the region for the Chamber and a large number of people keen to ensure it continues to be a success. The standard of candidate was really high and it was a very difficult decision to make.
The role of CEO at the Chamber is a very high profile role within the local business community, regularly meeting with leading politicians, small and large business owners, and key local authority officers and councillors, as well as running a busy SME. One minute you can be meeting the Prime Minister, the next the sole owner of a start up business looking at making organic yoghurts, each being as important and all requiring your time.
The recent interview process however highlighted a number of areas which we need to address with respect to how the Chamber is viewed, some we were aware of others were quite a surprise. There was a concern that the Chamber is perceived as a form of select privileged business club. This is clearly not the case and every business is welcome to the join the Norfolk Chamber even those who are not actually located in the County.
It is important for Norfolk’s overall business community that we have a strong Chamber of Commerce who challenges on behalf of the business community our politicians and policy makers locally, regionally and nationally. When running your own business it is great to know that you are not alone and that there are a number of similar like minded businesses all working together for the same cause. The Chamber provides this forum and seeks to help businesses who may not have the time to get their points over, to be heard and taken seriously.
The next few months are going to be incredibly important, with the result of the general election effectively impacting on every business. The Chamber takes a neutral political stance in these circumstances, however we always ensure that the key issues that effect our Member Businesses are clearly articulated to the various political parties. We also, where possible, try to provide guidance on what individual political parties manifestos mean for business generally.
During this period the Chamber Board and the management team will be making comments on how the political situation will impact on various sectors within the region with expert representation within manufacturing, food/agriculture, media, finance, skills, social media and construction. It looks like May is going to be a very busy month, on top of the training and networking events already planned by the Chamber.
Our new CEO will be starting close to the result of the general election at the beginning of June. Clearly a baptism of fire for anybody in a high profile role, especially if the outcome is the final political surprise in a series of three:
Brexit, Trump , ?…