Explaining VAPs: Selling the Value That Matters to Them

When buyers tell you what matters most, do you really use it?

In this episode, we explain Valued Added Propositions (VAPs) - how to take what your customer actually tells you and turn it into clear, relevant value that makes them feel heard. 

Instead of reeling off features or trying to sound clever, it’s about showing you’ve listened and linking what you offer to what really matters to them.

You’ll learn how to extract the top three buying priorities with open questions, then turn them into simple “you told me/it does/which means” statements.

We also look at why VAPs work well beyond the pitch:

• In follow-up emails
• To handle objections
• In proposals
• When training your team to personalise value

All of our examples show why value that fits beats value that just sounds good. And because The Reality is Sales Training is all about bite-sized learning, the episode’s just 13 minutes – perfect for your next coffee break.

Leading a team? Share this one with them – it’s a great way to help people link what they sell to what customers care about.

Explore resources, insights, and tools tailored to support your team's success and strategic growth at realitytraining.com.

Transcript

From USP To VAP

Jeremy Blake 0:15

You're listening to The Reality is Sales Training, and the Reality is That. And today, Bobby and I are going to bring you a very important bit of training, which is once you've asked all your questions, all of your questions, and you fully understand your customer, whoever they may be, you're then in a position to deliver a proposal, make a recommendation. And if you like, sell. So we are going to talk to you today about VAPS, which stands for value added proposition. I'm going to make your proposition and it's going to be full of value. It's a juicy value-added proposition. So, Bobby, what's the problem with what Rossa Reeves created? What's the problem with trying to have a USP these days? The unique selling proposition. Why is that hard?

Turning Answers Into Value Statements

Car Buyer Example: Space, Comfort, Tech

Bob Morrell 1:07

Well, it's very hard because of the first word. Unique. Uniqueness is a really, really difficult thing to define. I think in certain areas, um, like new technologies like AI and others, it is still possible to claim here, here's a unique application and it's fantastic. But I think for most other products and services, there is a competitor somewhere. So your uniqueness is not that. And so the term USP is overused, I'm afraid, because that uniqueness is a very, very uh unusual thing to claim. So what we then need to do is actually, if you think about Rossa Reeves, who was a great ad man back in the 1950s, what he did, he went to see how people created things, how people made things, how things were um put together, and then looked at how those different things linked to the customer's needs. Yeah. So listeners who will have heard our episode on questioning skills will know that we talk a lot about asking good quality, open questions to get the customer thinking, get them coming up with specific things that they really want, so they can make selections, they can make uh a very clear um imaginary idea of what it is they're looking for. And then the salesperson's job is to think about those answers, and then from those answers, form a VAP, a value-added proposition, which is a tailored value statement for that particular customer based on what they told you. So let's give an example, shall we, Jeremy? Let's imagine I'm gonna sell you a car. So what uh what are the top three most important features your new car must have?

Jeremy Blake 3:01

Well, I'm pleased you've asked me that. I want a big boot because I've got a big dog. Um I also like to traipse down to Devon quite a bit, and I've got three hulking great children that take up quite a bit of space. So I need I need a big car, big boot. I guess possibly I'm going into the seven-seater land, I suppose. Um, and cases, you know, I need to fit cases in there as well. Um so number one, I suppose, is size. Uh number two is comfort. I want it to be decent, comfy seats, cruising up and down motorways on my own quite often, but I want to, you know, have the cruise control going and have a really comfortable car. And I think the third thing I need is I'm pretty bad at finding myself wherever I am, getting around the place. I want a really good in in-car tech that um has a big, big screen. I can connect my ways to it or my nav, sat nav, and you know, and a really good sound system. I want to play some good pods and tracks and stuff. So those are my three. Does that give you enough?

Visualising Benefits And Closing

Bob Morrell 4:10

That's that that that's pretty good. Um now I may come back to you with some more questions, but for the the purposes of the exercise, let's see if I can create some VAPs from those top three priorities. So, um, Jeremy, you said that the size of boot, in fact, the size of the car was very important to you because of your uh dog and your children and the fact that you travel long distances. So you made that very clear that and you said you might be in the seven-seater land, yeah. Um, or indeed a car that has the option of seven seaters. That might be a a very good idea. Now, what we have for you here is a car which offers you those seven seats, but without the two seats at the back, it gives you a vast boot for the majority of journeys that you're going to be doing, but also some flexibility because your three hulking children, as you so charmingly describe them, have got their own individual seat which is adjustable, and you can adjust it, they can adjust it, which gives you flexible options in terms of space. So I think that's great. Not only that, there's a vast roof that you could also put stuff on as well. So you've got you've got really the the car equivalent of a van. So that's the first thing. And then you second thing you said was that you wanted comfort. Now you said you wanted comfort, and uh uh the cruising element was really important to you. What this car has is really soft leather seats, calf leather, which has been uh stretched over it in a very, very particular way with a couple of bits of ruching on the side, which I know is a particular favourite of yours. And what that means is that you're effectively in an armchair as you're driving along with an excellent, um, really high-tech cruise control system, which will make long distances just fly by, and you can sit back and and uh enjoy the journey in a far more comfort because of that, and that you won't get sore feet and sore legs while you're driving. So that's great. And then lastly, you said you wanted a great in in-car tech system. This particular car um has a very sensitive, um automatically updating sat nav system, so you don't need to worry about driving into you know roads that don't exist, or sometimes it looks like you're driving through fields because there's been a bypass built. This one, this one updates automatically, so you're you're never going to not know where you are. Um, and also uh it's linked to some superb um music system options, which actually come through um Bose speakers, which are you know, one of the highest quality. So I think uh what that means is that you've got the space, you've got the comfort, and you've got the technology that is really going to work for you. How does that sound?

Jeremy Blake 6:59

Well, it it sounds like you might be a salesman. Um and it sounds like I've found it. I I want this model, I'd like it. Good. Um, does it does it come in silver?

Bob Morrell 7:11

Hmm, would you like it in silver?

Jeremy Blake 7:14

Uh yes. I think I've just bought the car.

Bob Morrell 7:18

That was a reflexive close, ladies and gentlemen. So so there we have some examples of a VAP. A value-added proposition. The customer told me something, I linked that to a feature, and then I explained what that meant to this customer so that he has an image of himself enjoying those features. That is what a VAP is.

Jeremy Blake 7:39

Do you remember the early days of our training, the Olympus Trip VAP?

Bob Morrell 7:45

Oh, I mean, no one would know what that is, Jeremy. I mean, we've got this is going back into antiquity.

Jeremy Blake 7:50

Yeah, exactly. They don't make Olympus trip cameras anymore. They probably have a model of it, but when I was 17, I went to Nepal on a school trip, very like Bob's school. He he was he was gonna trip the trip to Nepal. God and rather than school trip.

Classic VAP Stories: Camera And Dyson

Bob Morrell 8:07

We once went on a day, we went on a day trip to Margate, so I think it was a slightly more exotic. Yeah.

Jeremy Blake 8:13

And I went into a camera shop and I tried to buy a camera, and this guy discovered all about my Nepalese trip, and his vat was amazing because it had a little delay button function on it where I could put the camera on a rock, then run back into the view. And he said, What this means is wherever you are in the pool, wherever you are in the world, even if there's no one else there with you, you can still capture that moment. Now, of course, that has been well, it is gorgeous, but you see how out of date that is because now people just take selfies. I mean, that is pre-mobile phone, pre-selfie.

Bob Morrell 8:48

Exactly, exactly. That's why I meant to come in from the training. Well, yes, and we just updated it. But yeah, and also I remember we used to do a thing about VAPs for the Dyson Airblade hand drive.

Jeremy Blake 9:00

Oh, it's gorgeous.

Bob Morrell 9:01

It's about great, we should bring that back. It's really good because the Dyson Airblade, we all see them now in um in the in the gents and ladies of various places that we visit. Why are they there? Well, it's really simple. Um, you told me that you want to sell more drinks and food uh to your customers. Yeah, um, we are reducing the amount of time people are spending drying their hands in your loos, and that's going to increase your takings by at least five to seven percent per day.

Jeremy Blake 9:31

God, because I suppose they haven't got these cues of people, and uh yeah, they're back at the bar.

Bob Morrell 9:37

Exactly. Now that was a great VAP, and uh, you know, if I if you think look at how successful the Dyson hand dries are now, and there's lots of different types, that shows you that that link between time and uh time spent in the loose has been clearly made, and I'm sure they must be the market leader now. So there we are.

Jeremy Blake 10:00

So VAPs are important. We've kind of explained it through demonstration, haven't we? That it's yeah, it's a proper recommendation. And if you can follow the classic power of three, which also Rossa Reeves was doing with his USPs or USP, it had three elements to make it compelling. Um, but it's all back up against what the customers told you. You told me, you told me, you told me. And therefore, the the arguments reduce, the objections are reduced, and so on. Um, it's a vital part of our training, and you can train your teams in it now too, because you're listening to this podcast.

Bob Morrell 10:32

Well, the other thing I'd say is that the lovely thing about VAPs is that they're really handy for a conversation with the customer when they're telling you things and you're repeating things back to them. They're really useful when you're making follow-up calls or follow-up emails, because you can remind them of the VAPs that were really important to them. They go, Oh, yes, I did like that thing. You can use them when you're objection handling. So if you can if you listen to our objection handling episodes, we reference VAPs there as well because it's their reasons why they're gonna buy, not anybody else's. So that's really important. Um, and they're also useful when you're presenting products and things as well, because you can take things they've said just to look and illustrate various features. So anything you can do to use a VAP and personalize your recommendation, it's gonna make it so much more likely that you make a sale.

Jeremy Blake 11:22

So get out your VAPs and you will have some success. Thank you, Bobby. We'll see you on another reality if the reality is sales training soon.

Training That Creates Better Conversations

Bob Morrell 11:34

Take care. Bye. Sometimes the experience you have will be good, positive, and organized, and that makes you feel great. Other experiences can be poor quality, and those organizations devalue what it is they're doing sometimes without thinking. That's essentially where reality training can add value. We make sure that people have great conversations. We work with them on their sales and service language, their selling skills, the way they ask questions, the way they create value statements, and the way that they handle issues about price and closing. And what we want to do is to make sure that customers and salespeople are coming away from their conversations, feeling good and positive. That's what we're aiming for. So if you've had a really good conversation recently, that person was probably well trained. That's what we offer high quality sales and service training, reality training, selling certainty.