Following the problem downstream ends at the revenue floor, which means the annual cost the buyer carries while the problem stays in place. That figure is the beginning of the work, and the Power Message, which means a single written claim linking one capability you hold to one problem that costs the buyer money, is what you build from it.
Most sales organizations have messaging. Very little of it survives contact with a buying group, because it was written from the product catalog and aimed at a market. A Power Message is written from one buyer's own account of what the problem is doing to them, and it is tested before it is used.
The Three Tests
A claim earns the name when it passes all three. Two out of three is a feature description with better wording.
- Unique. A competitor cannot put the same sentence in their own proposal without changing a word. If they can, the claim describes the category, and a category claim gives the buyer permission to decide on price.
- Provable. You can show it on request. A reference who will take the call, a worked example, a demonstration against the buyer's own conditions, or a document. A claim you cannot evidence within the sales cycle is a liability, because the moment it is questioned you lose the credibility that carried the rest of the letter.
- Attached to a cost the buyer carries. The claim names the problem in the buyer's own operational language and connects it to money they are already losing. The figure comes from the buyer. A figure you supplied is an estimate they are free to dispute.
Where the Power Message Comes From
It comes out of discovery. The downstream map produces five stages, and the last two are the ones that matter here: the customer impact, which means how the problem reaches the buyer's own customers, and the revenue floor, which means what the problem costs annually once the penalties, the rework, and the churn are added up.
A claim written before that work is finished describes the product. The same claim written afterward describes the buyer's situation, and the buyer recognizes it. That recognition is the whole point, because a buyer who reads their own operating problem in your words concludes that you understand the purchase better than the vendors who sent a capability list.
How to Write One
A Power Message has four parts, and it fits in one or two sentences. Longer than that and it stops being a claim and becomes a section.
- The problem, stated in the words the buyer used. Their vocabulary, their process names, their systems.
- The consequence, carrying the figure the buyer supplied for what it costs them.
- The capability that removes the consequence, described by what it does under the buyer's conditions.
- The proof, named and available. If the proof is a reference, the reference has agreed in advance to take the call.
Write it, then read it as a competitor would. If a competing vendor could sign their name underneath it, the claim is parity and it has to be rebuilt. This is the step almost everyone skips, and it is the one that does the work.
Three Ways a Claim Fails
The failures are consistent across industries, and each one has a repair.
- The parity claim. Enterprise grade, scalable, trusted by industry leaders. Every competitor says it, so the buyer discounts all of it and moves to price. The repair is to name the specific operating condition your capability was built for and say what happens under it.
- The unproven claim. Strong, specific, and impossible to evidence when the buyer's technical evaluator asks. The repair is to downgrade the claim to what you can show, which is almost always still stronger than the parity version.
- The unattached claim. Unique and provable, connected to nothing the buyer is losing money on. This is the hardest one to see, because the claim is true and interesting. The repair is to go back to discovery and find the cost, or to drop the claim and use the space for one that carries a figure.
One Claim Per Person Who Can Stop the Purchase
A single claim repeated to everybody is a campaign. An enterprise purchase has several people who can stop it, and each one carries a different problem. The person responsible for the budget is measured on different things from the person responsible for the systems, and both of them differ from the person who has to answer for security or compliance.
So the working minimum is three claims, each aimed at a named person and each attached to the cost that person carries. Building that set is the work described in surround sound, which means reaching every person who can stop the deal before the decision is made.
Where the Claims Get Delivered
The claims travel in the Plan Letter, which means the written follow-up that carries the agreed steps between this conversation and the buyer's own deadline. A Plan Letter that is working carries at least three of them.
One point of craft matters here. In the letter to the buyer the claims are delivered and never labeled. That reader is purchasing an outcome, and a method label reads as vendor language and breaks the voice of the letter. The name belongs in the documents where the selling system itself is the subject, which means a proposal for the methodology, a workshop agenda, or the internal planning sheet where the claims are built and tested.
Making It Structural
Claims written once decay, because the market moves and competitors copy. The durable version is a standing set, reviewed on a schedule, with the parity test applied every time a competitor updates their public material. The Jozu Power Score grades whether the claims in a team's own sales artifacts pass these tests, so the review becomes a measurement and stops depending on whoever happens to read the proposal.
Power Message: Common Questions
What is a Power Message?
A Power Message is a single written claim linking one capability the seller holds to one problem that costs the buyer money. It has to pass three tests: a competitor cannot say the same sentence word for word, the seller can prove it, and it is attached to a cost the buyer has already described.
How many Power Messages does a deal need?
At least three, and each one aimed at a different person who can stop the purchase. Three gives the buying group more than one reason to act and keeps the decision away from a single point of failure. One claim repeated to everybody is a campaign, and it leaves most of the buying group without a reason that applies to them.
What makes a Power Message unique?
The test is whether a competitor could put the same sentence in their own proposal without changing a word. If they could, the claim describes the category, so it gives the buyer permission to decide on price. Uniqueness usually comes from the specific operating conditions a capability was built for, and from what the seller can prove about outcomes under those conditions.
Where does a Power Message come from?
It comes out of discovery. The downstream map produces the buyer's operational impact and the annual cost of leaving the problem in place, and the Power Message is written from those two things. A claim written from the product catalog before discovery is a feature description, because no cost has been attached to it yet.
Should a Power Message be labeled when writing to the buyer?
No. In a letter to the buyer the claim is delivered and never named, because that reader is purchasing an outcome and a method label reads as vendor language. The name is used when the reader is buying the selling system, which means a proposal, a workshop agenda, or an internal planning document.
How is a Power Message different from a value proposition?
A value proposition describes what a company offers to a market. A Power Message is written for one buying group, names a problem in that buyer's own operational language, and carries the figure that buyer supplied for what the problem costs them annually. It is specific to one purchase and it is tested for whether a competitor could make the same claim.
Jeff Aragon, Founder, Jozu Revenue Systems