The Cat, The Fox, and the Unfocused Value Proposition
One of the most significant challenges facing companies in agtech today is building a good, concise value proposition.
One sunny day, a cat and a fox were traveling together through the woods.
As they walked, they began discussing their mutual enemy, the dog, and how to escape his attack.
“I have many clever ways to avoid being captured by the dog,” boasted the fox.
Suddenly, they heard the barking of an approaching pack of dogs.
The cat said, “I only know one way to escape dogs,” and quickly climbed a tree to safety.
But the fox paced back and forth, deciding which clever trick to use to evade the dogs. He couldn't pick just one...
Before he made up his mind, the dogs arrived, easily captured him, and carried him away.
The Value Proposition for Nobody
“Limitation is vital. The first step toward a well-told story is to create a small, knowable world... The constraint that setting imposes on story design doesn’t inhibit creativity; it inspires it.” - Robert McKee.
“The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.” - Albert Einstein.
One of the most significant challenges facing companies in agtech today is building a good, concise value proposition.
Most of us would prefer to list feature after feature in the hope that one of those features somehow aligns with the requirements of someone trying to solve a problem in agriculture.
We have solutions in search of problems…
Unfortunately for us, research shows that people are really bad at sorting through our feature lists and landing at value for them or their organization.
The Dilution Effect
Studies have shown that when audiences are presented with diagnostic (essential factors in the decision) and non-diagnostic (irrelevant) information, they have difficulty sifting the proverbial wheat from the chaff – commonly referred to as the dilution effect.
In other words, the perceived value of our feature lists is not measured as simple addition and subtraction but as an average of the entire list.
Irrelevant features or reams of incomprehensible data do not equate to more value in the minds of our customers.
Instead, when we think about our value proposition, we need to think of ourselves as authors searching for a clear aspiration for our lead character (the customer or investor).
The goal is to make the customer think, “How do they do that? How does this work? How can I get it?”
Crafting A Value Proposition That Sticks
To take another queue from screenwriters and novelists, we should begin crafting our value proposition by answering these questions:
What is the most painful challenge I can help my customer overcome?
As the result of using my product or service, what change is brought into my customer’s life and the lives of those they care about?
What is the risk or negative impact of not using my product or service?
"Drama is life with the dull parts cut out of it” – Alfred Hitchcock.
When we set out to tell a good story that resonates with our target audience, each of the pieces of that story must become singular in nature and flow together in a context that makes sense.
If we try to condense too much in our brand narrative or speak to too many different value propositions, our message will become diluted, and we will stumble around like the boastful fox in the story above…and it didn’t end well for him.
Make something different. Make people care. Make fans, not followers.