Articulating Value

This month, we move to the next stage in that commercial journey, how to articulate value.

For technically minded professionals, this can be surprisingly difficult. Not because they don’t create value, quite the opposite. The challenge is that when you are deeply immersed in your own expertise, it is very easy to communicate what you do rather than what it actually means for the client.

We talk about our methodology, technical approach, experience, credentials, process and deliverables. All of those things are important, but they describe the work from our perspective. The client is usually looking at it through a very different lens. They want to understand what will be different as a result, what problem will be solved, what opportunity will be created and, ultimately, why it matters to them.

Value is rarely inherent in the service itself. It exists in what that service enables the client to achieve. An environmental consultant may deliver a technically excellent assessment, but the client may value the certainty it provides around planning and programme, helping to prevent delays and additional costs. A solicitor may provide technically robust advice, but the real value to the client could be resolving an issue quickly enough to protect a commercial relationship. An engineer may develop an alternative technical solution, but its value could lie in reducing cost, accelerating delivery or avoiding disruption elsewhere in the project.

The technical output matters enormously, of course, but the value sits in the consequence of that output for the client. This is also why value cannot simply be assumed. What one client values may be relatively unimportant to another. Speed may be critical in one situation, whilst certainty, flexibility, reputation, cost or stakeholder confidence may dominate in another. To articulate value effectively, we therefore have to understand what this particular client values, in this particular situation. That requires a skilled and sometimes patient exploration of where they are now, where they want to get to and what sits between the two.

Which brings us back to several of the behaviours we’ve already explored throughout The 5 Minute Advantage. If you haven’t listened properly, explored the client’s wider world and understood what really matters to them, it becomes very difficult to articulate value in a way that genuinely resonates. Mindset matters enormously here. If we enter a conversation thinking, ‘what services can we sell them?’, it inevitably influences the questions we ask and the way we listen. It is unlikely to create the conditions in which a client feels comfortable sharing their real hopes, fears, pressures and concerns. If instead, we approach the conversation with a genuine desire to learn and help, we are far more likely to build the trust that encourages the client to open up. The information they share then enables us to develop a much more relevant, compelling and outcomes-focused solution.

Part of this means getting alongside the client and viewing the situation from their perspective, rather than our own. What are they trying to achieve? Who are they trying to achieve it for? What does success mean to their own customers? What are the consequences for them if it goes well, or badly? The more we understand the world beyond the immediate brief, including the world of our client’s clients, the better equipped we are to recognise where genuine value lies.

The strongest technical professionals therefore don’t wait until the proposal or pitch to start thinking about value. They uncover it throughout every conversation, building a picture of both the client’s current situation and the outcome they are trying to achieve. They ask questions that help them understand not simply what the client needs, but why they need it. What happens if this isn’t resolved? What does a good outcome look like? What pressures are influencing the decision? What matters most to the people involved?

Those conversations give you something incredibly important…the client’s own language for describing value. And that matters because one of the easiest traps to fall into is assuming that our definition of value is the same as theirs. We may be enormously proud of the seniority of the team, the sophistication of our methodology or the depth of our technical expertise, but if those things aren’t connected back to something the client actually cares about, they remain features rather than value.

The difference can sometimes be remarkably simple. Instead of saying, “You’ll have access to a highly experienced senior team,” explain what that means: “Having senior people involved from the outset means decisions can be made quickly and potential issues identified earlier, helping you keep the programme moving.” The expertise hasn’t changed, the way its value has been communicated has.

This becomes particularly important when price enters the conversation. Fee pushback is sometimes treated as a negotiation problem, but it can actually begin much earlier. If the client understands exactly what they are buying, why it matters and what the outcome means to them, there is far greater alignment between value and price. That doesn’t mean clients will never challenge a fee, of course, but it does mean you are far less likely to find yourself trying to justify value retrospectively once the number is already on the table.

Articulating value is not about making your expertise sound more impressive, it is about being clear why that expertise matters to the client. When both sides are clear on what matters, what success looks like and the value of achieving it, commercial conversations become considerably easier. There is greater alignment, greater confidence and far less need to defend the price after the event.

Next month, we’ll move to the point where an opportunity becomes more formal – pitching. Because once you understand the client and the value you can create, the challenge is communicating it compellingly when you’re competing for the work.