Value Proposition Design for Coaches
What is Value Proposition Design?
Value Proposition Design is a thinking and toolkit that enables a coach or other helping professional service provider to offer relevant, important, unsatisfied and high-value services to their respective target audiences.
Target audience: why it matters to have one (or more)
I have been working as an ICF qualified life coach and business for the past 8 years. But in my previous ‘life’, I used to work in advertising, where I came across dozens of brands, services and products that needed to reach their target audiences. Some of them achieved this quite efficiently, others did less so. Most brands (service and product providers) – to this day – define their target markets based on demographics (age, location, gender, family status, etc.), which works to a certain extent, however is much less effective and efficient, than if we take a look at what is the situation and context people are in, and we equip ourselves to serve those needs with services and products we provide for them. This is where Value Proposition Design comes in.
With Value Proposition Design, we can think about and understand your customers (target audiences) in a much more meaningful way: what ‘customer jobs’ do they have that need to be done (e.g. be more self-confident); what pains are they trying to avoid and ‘kill’ (e.g. be able to avoid loss-of-face during a presentation); and what gains are they looking to achieve within their lives (e.g. win the trust of people when going into a sales process)? Here’s where your services come in: you are competing for their time, money and attention with your coaching, mentoring or consulting services (or a product you have developed for them). Your potential customers have plenty of choices to choose from (e.g. self-help books, online trainings, therapy, etc., and not only other coaches!). So how will you become relevant for them?
What will we do during Value Proposition Design consulting and coaching?
I offer Value Proposition Design coaching and consulting as a unique, highly tailor-made service that results in a very detailed set of customer jobs, pains and gains, matched with your painkillers and gain creators that meet your customers’ needs. My added value is thinking all this through with you, acting as both a brainstorming partner, a mentor, a coach, a consultant and a sounding-board for your ideas.
Why work with me?
I have been trained by Strategyzer’s Alexander Osterwalder, founder and co-author of Value Proposition Design and Business Model Generation in a MasterClass to be able to act as a consultant and trainer for this toolkit.
I have worked with over 100 business owners, coaches, consultants and service providers in various sectors providing different services (and products) to a wide variety of target audiences.
I am an International Coach Federation (ICF) accredited PCC level coach, and have worked with dozens of coaches on their respective profiles, creating unique Value Proposition Designs for each of them. I have 20 years of consulting experience, in a wide spectrum of industries and niches. My coaching experience is also vast, having worked with leaders, entrepreneurs, multinational organisations’ team leads and with teams as a team coach and a business coach.

Testimonials
Technical details
- 3 x 3 hour sessions, where we explore, fine-tune and lay out the details about your target audience(s)
- pre-work, homework and follow-up care included
- Zoom or Skype sessions as channels of communication
- £400 or €450 fee (which you will likely earn-back by finding your ‘new’ very first client, after our sessions)
Your work with me as process can be laid out in three simple steps:
1. Starting point
Many coaches and helping professionals think about who it is they would like to attract in a very generic way.
‘I will help people wanting to progress in their careers, or looking to have a better work-life balance…or are in a stressful situation…etc…etc…’
True, but useless (TBU). ‘Wait, what…useless?’ Let me explain. While I can’t disagree that if you would target people this way, you could be looking at serving millions of people…however, they as an ‘audience’ or ‘group’ don’t exist in their entirety. Instead, hundreds of different client ‘need-sets’ exist, waiting to be identified: very specific jobs, pains and gains can be identified, and served in a much more focused way.

2. A change in your thinking about who it is you could serve
Once we start working, I will call your attention to the details, allowing you to start thinking from the perspectives of your real target audience(s). You need to find something that you can relate to personally. Without this, you will sound and feel ‘cold’ to your potential coachee clients. Credibility and authenticity are words that I think are important to keep in mind, whatever topic you choose to address. Clients figure it out instinctively and very quickly, if a coach is a generalist without much affinity to a topic, or a specialist with personal experience and connection to a topic. Be a specialist!
If you were to think about your target audience in a segmented way, using Value Proposition Design thinking, you could communicate with them more efficiently. They would recognize themselves…and be inclined to get in touch with you, as you are the one to solve their pain.

3. Outcome: Specific niches identified and needs defined
Once you have well-identified niche segments that offer lucrative possibilities for You, it becomes much easier to identify respective needs – and serve them right. This is arguably the most exciting part of the work we do together, and the outcome is a feeling that you finally know who it is you want to attract, and possess the mindset to do so. Exciting stuff, huh?
…oh, and you will have a website full of authentic insights that get clients to call you.
