Great write up April. This reminded me of the seat belt. No car buyer would ever imagine to compare seat belts, but if a car didn’t have one…well it’s the show stopper.
So many companies I advise don’t invest in their “seat belts” anymore as it doesent support their differentiated value (and we gotta put all our money there).
Yes, that's exactly it. In tech, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, though. It's less like a seatbelt and more like an upgraded stereo system. It's better, but does anyone care all that much? is that really what gets the deal done?
Nearly every SaaS product I see has the value prop built around saving you time and making you money as a result, but I see very little differentiated value. We often list all the things in our copy- features, same same value. So we’re very reliant on the bad experience with a competitor you mention.
In B2B, if we abstract our value proposition all the way out to "pure" marketing-textbook value, then we only have two things we can do for customers - we help them make money or we help them save money (technically reduce risk is the third but we see that one less often). The trick is for us to translate from features to value but maintain our differentiation, which means we have to get a whole lot more specific and less abstract than "makes money." If the value prop could be applied to any competitor - we haven't done our job.
My first sales trainer called them go-fosters. They don’t close the deal but they do make the deal go faster.
Sometimes those go-fasters can turn into differentiated value, post sale, like professional services. In enterprise B2B PS is expected, usually in terms of initial time to value. It’s a year or two down the road that where PS can shine, after the customer has implemented and used it. They’ll have gotten used to it functioning a certain way and PS can show them the blind spots or areas of vast improvement. Hard to sell that up front but certainly something for account managers to push prior to renewal.
Great read! Also the most powerful value propositions tend to have a cascade effect. When you solve one core problem it also helps you identify solutions to 3- 4 other challenges that your customer is facing.
There is a newly published book that speaks to what they refer to as “drivers” (the differentiators) and “satisfiers” (table stakes) similarly to your concept of value vs objection handling. The book is called “The Missionary and the Mercercenary.”
Organizations tend to overdeliver on satisfiers which customers generally won’t pay you extra for. But they will pay for drivers.
I’d love to offer a different perspective—while we recognize that many companies align with the approach outlined in your article, at Crombie, through our Empathy-Driven Business philosophy, we’ve intentionally broken away from this conventional way of thinking.
The model described in your piece is built on preconceived ideas of value and objections. However, from our perspective, there is a fundamental disconnect in how value is framed for customers. Value cannot be reduced to features or specific solutions; rather, it must be deeply rooted in how we understand and solve the unique challenges of each client, continuously adapting to their needs, expectations, and context.
Value is not in the “offering”; it’s in how our capabilities and human-centered approach transform our clients’ reality.
Why do we see it differently?
The concept of "offering" is outdated and limiting. Defining a company's value solely by its offering—whether a product or service—misses the deeper connection with customers. The true value is not in the tangible features, but in how these solutions address specific, real-world challenges.
We don’t see value as what wins a sale or objections as what prevents it. Instead of assuming that customers make decisions linearly (choosing the best “offering” and then resolving concerns about support, integrations, etc.), we acknowledge that decision-making is far more complex.
In Empathy-Driven Business, value is not just what we do, but how and why we do it:
Actively listening to customers to understand not just their immediate problems, but their deeper expectations, fears, and constraints.
Designing solutions that don’t just solve a technical issue but empower customers in the long run.
Recognizing that "differentiated value" is not a checklist of unique features, but the ability to navigate and solve complex human and organizational challenges.
Value is often perceived, not just tangible. Many times, clients don’t even realize what they truly need until they experience it. This is where customer experience and a human approach become key differentiators.
For example: A customer may not initially see support or modularity as a primary value, but when these elements are seamlessly integrated into a solution that gives them confidence and flexibility from day one, they become the foundation of long-term success.
We don’t see support and integration as post-sale concerns. Retention starts the moment we demonstrate empathy in the sales process. Customers don’t just buy what we do; they buy how they perceive we do it. From the very first interaction, we show them that we understand their problems and can adapt to them, fostering long-term relationships from the start.
How Crombie Breaks Away from the Traditional Approach
We are offering-agnostic. Our focus is not on selling “products or services” but on designing solutions tailored to each client, leveraging our capabilities and expertise.
The customer defines value, not us. We recognize that every client has unique priorities, and we shape our solutions accordingly, rather than forcing them into a predefined package.
Empathy is our differentiator. While others focus on highlighting features, we focus on building real connections with our clients' challenges and goals.
This is a conversation that could go much deeper, but I wanted to share our perspective on rethinking value beyond offerings. Would love to hear your thoughts!
My background is all about selling products, not services. If your product IS a service and what you do is custom software, then absolutely what you say would be true. I would say that this approach is precisely the "conventional" way of doing things for custom products.
For a product business, however, we cannot build something custom for each customer. In fact, there will be many prospects that we will specifically disqualify because we cannot meet their needs with the specific product we have in the market today. With a product,t we only have a very narrow value we can deliver. Our definition of value is indeed from a customer's perspective, but we cannot provide any value that a customer might want when we sell a product.
Custom Development services are a completely different game from selling a pre-built software product in my opinion.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your perspective—I really appreciate the clarity you bring to the distinction between product businesses and custom services.
I completely agree that custom services have more flexibility to tailor solutions for each individual client, whereas product businesses operate within different constraints. That said, I wonder if there’s also room to explore how empathy-driven principles could play a meaningful role in product development and value delivery, even when working with pre-built offerings.
While a product itself may not change for every individual customer, there’s still an opportunity to design and evolve it with a deeper understanding of the customer’s evolving expectations, challenges, and emotional drivers. How we frame its value, how we prioritize future iterations, and how we engage with customers throughout their journey can be profoundly influenced by an empathy-first approach.
For instance, companies like Slack and Notion started with relatively narrow scopes but continuously refined their products by deeply understanding user behaviors and needs beyond just technical requirements. Their evolution was not just about adding features but about aligning more closely with how customers truly experience value.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on how empathy-driven thinking could complement product strategy, particularly in shaping how we define and deliver value within the constraints of a pre-built offering. I really appreciate the discussion and the insights you’ve shared!
Great write up April. This reminded me of the seat belt. No car buyer would ever imagine to compare seat belts, but if a car didn’t have one…well it’s the show stopper.
So many companies I advise don’t invest in their “seat belts” anymore as it doesent support their differentiated value (and we gotta put all our money there).
Yes, that's exactly it. In tech, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, though. It's less like a seatbelt and more like an upgraded stereo system. It's better, but does anyone care all that much? is that really what gets the deal done?
Oh would, never thought about it in this angle. Great take, thanks for sharing - I learned something new today :)
hey thanks!
Wow I’m star struck! Loved your presentation at microconf, amazing storytelling :)
Ah I loved that conference so much - I should go back there!
As always, fantastic!
Hey thanks!
Nearly every SaaS product I see has the value prop built around saving you time and making you money as a result, but I see very little differentiated value. We often list all the things in our copy- features, same same value. So we’re very reliant on the bad experience with a competitor you mention.
In B2B, if we abstract our value proposition all the way out to "pure" marketing-textbook value, then we only have two things we can do for customers - we help them make money or we help them save money (technically reduce risk is the third but we see that one less often). The trick is for us to translate from features to value but maintain our differentiation, which means we have to get a whole lot more specific and less abstract than "makes money." If the value prop could be applied to any competitor - we haven't done our job.
I actually have your book but it’s on my list to read! Is this covered off in there?
My first sales trainer called them go-fosters. They don’t close the deal but they do make the deal go faster.
Sometimes those go-fasters can turn into differentiated value, post sale, like professional services. In enterprise B2B PS is expected, usually in terms of initial time to value. It’s a year or two down the road that where PS can shine, after the customer has implemented and used it. They’ll have gotten used to it functioning a certain way and PS can show them the blind spots or areas of vast improvement. Hard to sell that up front but certainly something for account managers to push prior to renewal.
I really like this "go faster" idea - I'm stealing that!!
I stole it so I have no claim on it. :-)
Your other point about stopping a deal is true, too. They will make the deal go faster but will kill it without them.
Great read! Also the most powerful value propositions tend to have a cascade effect. When you solve one core problem it also helps you identify solutions to 3- 4 other challenges that your customer is facing.
There is a newly published book that speaks to what they refer to as “drivers” (the differentiators) and “satisfiers” (table stakes) similarly to your concept of value vs objection handling. The book is called “The Missionary and the Mercercenary.”
Organizations tend to overdeliver on satisfiers which customers generally won’t pay you extra for. But they will pay for drivers.
Totally agree with your perspective.
Hi April, thanks for sharing this!
I’d love to offer a different perspective—while we recognize that many companies align with the approach outlined in your article, at Crombie, through our Empathy-Driven Business philosophy, we’ve intentionally broken away from this conventional way of thinking.
The model described in your piece is built on preconceived ideas of value and objections. However, from our perspective, there is a fundamental disconnect in how value is framed for customers. Value cannot be reduced to features or specific solutions; rather, it must be deeply rooted in how we understand and solve the unique challenges of each client, continuously adapting to their needs, expectations, and context.
Value is not in the “offering”; it’s in how our capabilities and human-centered approach transform our clients’ reality.
Why do we see it differently?
The concept of "offering" is outdated and limiting. Defining a company's value solely by its offering—whether a product or service—misses the deeper connection with customers. The true value is not in the tangible features, but in how these solutions address specific, real-world challenges.
We don’t see value as what wins a sale or objections as what prevents it. Instead of assuming that customers make decisions linearly (choosing the best “offering” and then resolving concerns about support, integrations, etc.), we acknowledge that decision-making is far more complex.
In Empathy-Driven Business, value is not just what we do, but how and why we do it:
Actively listening to customers to understand not just their immediate problems, but their deeper expectations, fears, and constraints.
Designing solutions that don’t just solve a technical issue but empower customers in the long run.
Recognizing that "differentiated value" is not a checklist of unique features, but the ability to navigate and solve complex human and organizational challenges.
Value is often perceived, not just tangible. Many times, clients don’t even realize what they truly need until they experience it. This is where customer experience and a human approach become key differentiators.
For example: A customer may not initially see support or modularity as a primary value, but when these elements are seamlessly integrated into a solution that gives them confidence and flexibility from day one, they become the foundation of long-term success.
We don’t see support and integration as post-sale concerns. Retention starts the moment we demonstrate empathy in the sales process. Customers don’t just buy what we do; they buy how they perceive we do it. From the very first interaction, we show them that we understand their problems and can adapt to them, fostering long-term relationships from the start.
How Crombie Breaks Away from the Traditional Approach
We are offering-agnostic. Our focus is not on selling “products or services” but on designing solutions tailored to each client, leveraging our capabilities and expertise.
The customer defines value, not us. We recognize that every client has unique priorities, and we shape our solutions accordingly, rather than forcing them into a predefined package.
Empathy is our differentiator. While others focus on highlighting features, we focus on building real connections with our clients' challenges and goals.
This is a conversation that could go much deeper, but I wanted to share our perspective on rethinking value beyond offerings. Would love to hear your thoughts!
My background is all about selling products, not services. If your product IS a service and what you do is custom software, then absolutely what you say would be true. I would say that this approach is precisely the "conventional" way of doing things for custom products.
For a product business, however, we cannot build something custom for each customer. In fact, there will be many prospects that we will specifically disqualify because we cannot meet their needs with the specific product we have in the market today. With a product,t we only have a very narrow value we can deliver. Our definition of value is indeed from a customer's perspective, but we cannot provide any value that a customer might want when we sell a product.
Custom Development services are a completely different game from selling a pre-built software product in my opinion.
Hi April,
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your perspective—I really appreciate the clarity you bring to the distinction between product businesses and custom services.
I completely agree that custom services have more flexibility to tailor solutions for each individual client, whereas product businesses operate within different constraints. That said, I wonder if there’s also room to explore how empathy-driven principles could play a meaningful role in product development and value delivery, even when working with pre-built offerings.
While a product itself may not change for every individual customer, there’s still an opportunity to design and evolve it with a deeper understanding of the customer’s evolving expectations, challenges, and emotional drivers. How we frame its value, how we prioritize future iterations, and how we engage with customers throughout their journey can be profoundly influenced by an empathy-first approach.
For instance, companies like Slack and Notion started with relatively narrow scopes but continuously refined their products by deeply understanding user behaviors and needs beyond just technical requirements. Their evolution was not just about adding features but about aligning more closely with how customers truly experience value.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on how empathy-driven thinking could complement product strategy, particularly in shaping how we define and deliver value within the constraints of a pre-built offering. I really appreciate the discussion and the insights you’ve shared!
Good insight 😌 Can i translate part of this article into Spanish with links to you?