How to use value propositions to hone in on your ICP

↳ and tighten your positioning 🎯

👉 The trick here is to uncover a single competing alternative to position against.

We call this alternative a prospect's "Current Way".

❌ And you can’t have an ICP without a clear definition of the current way.

This gets a lot of startups in trouble — because it’s common for similar customers to be carrying out DIFFERENT current ways.

📶 This is an indicator that don’t quite have a dialed in ICP.

↳ You have variations of an ICP.

So how should you approach this from a messaging standpoint?

1️⃣ If you DON’T have a single Current Way

→ Message on what you think the top 3 current ways are…

⚡ And listen for signal in your customer interactions.

You’ll start to see patterns:

↳ frequency of each situation

↳ how well each situation reacts to your product

↳ how many of those situations turn into customers

Use these inputs to dial in the focus of your messaging over time.

2️⃣ If you DO have a single current way…

Craft your messaging around it by highlighting multiple limitations of that current way.

🔱 This creates a multi-pronged message that will be more detailed.

↳ and more compelling to a prospect with that “current way”

____

The example shown is for Loom with the following assumptions:

🟢 Targeting product leaders

🟤 Use case: communicating product roadmap updates

On the left, this is how they might structure their messaging if they were trying to identify which “current way” they a primarily competing with.

On the right, this is how they would structure their argument to aggressively compete with “calling an all hands meeting”.

💢 Are you using “current way” to define your ICP?