Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change: A Third Edition

DETERMINING YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION

There are three critical factors to embrace when attempting to market professional services: (1) What’s the market need? (2) What are your competencies? and (3) What is your passion?

What Is the Market Need?

This is the essence of marketing. There must be a pre-existing need. For example, sales development or leadership improvement is always needed or a need you can create such as satisfying employees before satisfying the customer. Since OD is an often nebulous and inexact concept, it is vital to create a clear value proposition.

A value proposition is always a benefit for the potential client and never a description of your methodology. For example, here are good and poor value propositions:

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