Conveying the value your business brings to clients, whether individuals or other businesses, can be very difficult at times. Many problems present themselves in these situations such as the measure of value; the way you perceive value isn’t always the way your clients or prospects measure value. There’s a solution to some of these problems and it is called the Q statement.
What are they?
Q statements are quantitative statements that are used to communicate the magnitude of impact that a person, good or service has proven to provide in the past. They allow the users to communicate effectively to the recipients just how much they stand to benefit from a chosen course of action. They are used effectively by marketers, job seekers, customer service representatives and salespeople in many situations.
How do they work?
The point of a Q statement is to illustrate in a manner the prospect understands the benefit of what you are offering them. Say yes you were selling a pen that enabled the writer to produce clear legible handwriting. The marketer’s dilemma is of course how to link the ability of the pen to an outcome that the market desires. A good statement would be something like “helps make sure your employees get the message”. A Q statement would be something like “makes your writing understood by 90% of readers”. The difference comes in the measurable increase in value that your product provides. Being understood is an outcome that matters to someone who writes orders.
Where are they used?
They have really wide applications. They can be used in the marketing of goods, services, job applicants and many more scenarios. The standard Q statement you may be more familiar with uses the format;
Because of X technology, our product Y gives you Z% improvement in your daily activity.
This reaches a person on the level they both understand and perceive value.
A few examples
Let’s look at a few real-life examples of Q statements to see how we can apply them in our own businesses and more.
Our cloud storage solution helps businesses maintain perfect records of transactions for longer than the 6 years required for tax purposes while also saving you businesses office space as compared to paper records.
Switching to a full e-commerce website means your business can sell 24 hours a day instead of the usual 8 hours.
We have trained over 500 internal control professionals who have reported back to us that their systems are much more effective and have been positively reviewed by auditors and we can do the same for your business.
As a social media manager, we managed to increase daily engagement across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to 50 engagements per day.
For your business
To apply Q statements in your business pitch you will need to answer a few questions first.
What do your customers value about your product?
This may not always be the same as what you value or think they value.
How is it measured?
How is the value measured and how can you measure the increase in value your product brings?
What feature of your product delivers this benefit?
What is it that you possess or delivers this benefit?
Once you have answered these questions your Q statement is written. You can have multiple Q statements, of course, the idea is to communicate value and some products have multiple value highlights.
Q statement is not a salesman’s puff
A salesman’s puff is a pitch statement that is meant to put the product in a good light. Salesman’s puffs are distinct from Q statements in that they rarely possess any numerical information. Where they do possess numerical information it is usually a thumb-suck figure. How can you tell the two apart? If you find yourself presented with a statement that you want to distinguish whether it is a Q statement or a salesman’s puff ask for proof. In the same breath do not make Q statements you cannot prove.
