Two Drafts, One Board Meeting: Judging Value Props Against the Framework
Objective: Given two competing value-proposition drafts for the same grooming brand, use the lesson's own quality tests, specificity, outcome vs. feature, customer language, to decide which one a board would actually approve, and name exactly which mistake the losing draft makes.
Two junior marketers at a grooming brand for underserved skin and hair types (built in the spirit of Walker & Company's founding mission) each wrote a value proposition for a homepage redesign. The founder has fifteen minutes before the board call and needs a decision, not a diplomatic "both are good." (These two drafts are illustrative copy written for this exercise, not the company's real historical marketing.)
Two drafts, two comparison passes. Run each draft through the same two lesson mistakes in order, then write the one-paragraph verdict the founder actually needs.
Before you start
What you'll need
Free path (everything below is enough to finish)
Free tier's table/columns view is enough to lay two paragraphs next to each other for comparison.
The process
2 steps
Step 01 of 02
Mistake 1: writing for yourself, not your customer. Customers do not buy features, they buy outcomes. If a value proposition could live on a competitor's homepage without changing a word, it is not specific enough.
Which draft describes what the company built versus what changes for the customer?
Procedure
- Read Draft A and underline every noun that names a product feature (trimmer, blade system, edge, grip).
- Read Draft B and underline every phrase that names a customer feeling or outcome (bumps, calm skin, one blade instead of five).
- Count which draft leads with a feature versus which leads with an outcome in its first sentence.
- Decide which draft would survive being read out loud to someone who has never heard of the brand.
Draft A: "Our precision trimmer and single-blade razor system, engineered with a patented bump-prevention edge, delivers a barbershop-quality shave with reduced irritation and a sleeker grip design." Draft B: "You've stopped shaving because every razor leaves you with bumps that take a week to calm down. This single-blade system cuts each hair once instead of dragging it out with the follicle, so the shave that used to wreck your skin for days doesn't anymore."
Healthy
Opening sentence names the customer's felt problem before any product mechanism.
Unhealthy
Opening sentence lists product features (patented edge, grip design) before naming what changes for the customer.
What this means
Draft A lists three features, trimmer, patented edge, grip design, before a single customer benefit appears. Draft B opens with the felt problem itself and only introduces the mechanism ("one blade, not five") to explain why the outcome is true.
So what do I do about it?
| Symptom | Action | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| value proposition reads like a spec sheet | rewrite the opening sentence to start with the customer's frustration, not the product's engineering | 30 min |
Step 02 of 02
Mistake 2: trying to appeal to everyone. A value proposition that speaks to everyone speaks to no one. Name the specific type of customer and the specific friction they feel.
Which draft implies a specific, real customer segment, and which one implies "everyone who shaves"?
Procedure
- Check Draft A for any language that narrows the audience beyond "a person who shaves."
- Check Draft B for language that narrows the audience without stating a demographic outright.
- Note that Draft B never says a demographic category, it implies a segment through the specific symptom (bumps that take a week to heal), which is the harder, more honest version of naming a segment.
Draft A audience: unstated, implicitly "anyone who shaves." Draft B audience: implied through symptom, people whose skin reacts badly to standard multi-blade razors, without naming a demographic.
Healthy
Segment is named or clearly implied through a specific, shared symptom.
Unhealthy
No segment is named or implied; the copy could apply to any customer of any competitor.
What this means
Draft B's segment is implied rather than stated outright, which is still a pass: the lesson's own bar is specificity, not a demographic label. Draft A never narrows the audience at all.
So what do I do about it?
| Symptom | Action | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| value proposition tries to describe every possible customer at once | name the one symptom or moment that only your real target segment feels, and write to that | 30 min |
Final deliverable
A one-paragraph verdict naming which draft wins and which two specific lesson mistakes the losing draft makes, plus a two-sentence rewrite of its weakest line.
See a reference example
Winning draft: Draft B. It leads with the specific felt problem (razor bumps that take a week to calm down), not the product's engineering, and it implies a specific segment through the symptom itself rather than naming "everyone who shaves." Draft A commits Mistake 1 (writing for yourself, not the customer) by opening with three product features, precision trimmer, patented edge, sleeker grip, before ever mentioning what changes for the person using it. The fix for Draft A's weakest line: "engineered with a patented bump-prevention edge" becomes "built so the bumps that used to last a week don't show up in the first place." The same discipline is what let a brand like Drunk Elephant grow almost entirely through Sephora sell-through and organic social instead of an ad-led launch, the product claim did the work a slogan usually has to.
Success criteria
You're done when you can:
- Correctly identifies Draft A as feature-first (Mistake 1) and explains what customer outcome is missing
- Correctly identifies that Draft B implies a specific segment while Draft A implies none (Mistake 2)
- Verdict names Draft B as the stronger draft with a reason tied to the lesson, not a vague "it just sounds better"
- Rewrite of the weakest line converts a feature into an outcome