Understanding Meaning to the Other Side

The point

The meaning of value to the other side: over 25 ways to denominate. Here's a few: quantify, compare, contrast, metaphorize, analogize, future pace, relate, model, risk reversal.

Jay Abraham · Two Day Rapid-Result "Instant Immersion" — Day 1 Cued to 3:00:20 6 min 54 sec loading…

Why it matters

Almost everybody describes their value the way it looks from where they are standing. The other side has never once decided for your reasons. They decide for theirs — their fears, their outcomes, the world they actually live in — and your job is to translate the value into their meaning before you ask them for anything. You find their scale by asking what they are trying to fix, and what it costs them if it stays unfixed. Ask who else has to agree, and what that person will judge the decision against. Then write down the exact words they used, because those words are the scale itself. The word I use for that translation is denominate. The same benefit can be expressed a dozen ways and only one of them truly lands with the person in front of you. Quantify it. Compare it. Contrast it. Put it in a metaphor, an analogy, a picture. Future-pace them into the result. Relate it to something they already know and already trust. Model it so they can watch it work. Your task is to hand them the value in a denomination they can actually put on their own scale. And the most powerful denomination of all is to reverse the risk. When you carry it, the value stops being a promise and becomes a certainty. Do it for the client, then for your suppliers, your team, your investors. Take away the other side's risk and watch what becomes possible.

The mistake almost everyone makes

Adding more value when the value is not landing. More features, more inclusions, more proof — all of it denominated in your terms, which is what was wrong in the first place. The answer is a different denomination, not a larger quantity of the same one.

The test: Say your main benefit in the words your client would use to explain it to their own boss. If you have to translate, you had not denominated it.

Where it shows up — 8 worked examples

Who	What happened
Xerox	Rather than sell the expensive 914 outright, it leased the machine and charged by usage, turning a frightening purchase into a low-risk trial.
Zappos	Attacked the fear of buying shoes online with free shipping, 365-day returns and round-the-clock service, making the no painless.
CarMax	Replaced haggling with fixed prices, inspections and guarantees, changing the context from adversarial bargaining to transparent confidence.
River Pools	A near-bankrupt installer answered online every honest buyer question, including the ones the industry refused, and teaching replaced pitching.
Peloton	Sold not a stationary bike but instructors, live classes, metrics and a community — the denomination the buyer actually wanted.
Toast	Stopped being a point-of-sale tool and became the thing an operator depends on for survival, control and growth.
Hims & Hers	The product was never the point. Removing shame, delay and friction from getting help was, and it reached roughly $1.5 billion.
On Holding	Translated running-shoe engineering into the felt sensation of running on clouds, and commands about 60% gross margin for it.

What it solves

The words a business owner uses for this before anybody has told them the name of it. If one of these is a sentence you have said out loud, this is your strategy.

They agree and then do nothing“People tell me it sounds great and then nothing happens, and I never find out what was missing.”The value re-expressed in a denomination they can weigh on their own scale, which is the difference between a nod and a decision.
We answer questions they did not ask“Our proposals cover everything we think is impressive and almost nothing they raised in the meeting.”Their fears and their outcomes established first, so the proposal answers the meeting rather than the brochure.
We add more when it does not land“Whenever an offer stalls our instinct is to put more into it, and that has never once worked.”A different denomination in place of a larger quantity of the same one — more of what was not landing has never once started landing.
The buyer carries all the risk“We ask people to commit and find out afterwards whether it was right, and the careful ones never commit.”Risk reversal as the strongest denomination there is, applied to clients and then to suppliers, team and investors as well.
We describe features they need outcomes“I can describe exactly what we do and I could not tell you what it changes about their Monday.”Over twenty ways to hand somebody the same benefit, until you find the one that changes what their Monday looks like.
The advisor's version“I explain my value the way I understand it, and I have never once explained it the way the client would.”Your own value explained the way the client would explain it, which is the version that gets you hired and the one advisors never write.

The challenge

Denominate one benefit three different ways.

Before you write anything, ask your next three prospects what they are trying to fix and in what terms they will judge whether it worked. Then take your single most important benefit and write it out three times, in three different denominations, using their words. Once as a number they can weigh. Once as a comparison to something they already understand. Once with the risk taken off them entirely. Then put all three in front of the next three and watch which one produces the question rather than the nod.

How you will know it is done One benefit written in three denominations, all three tested on real prospects, and the one that produced a question identified.

The AI layer · second pass

Once this is working, here is what to multiply

Improve the system first. Then multiply it. This panel is the second run at the strategy above, and it is deliberately useless until the first run is done.

Before you point anything at this You have denominated one benefit three ways by hand and watched which produced a question.

What it multiplies Rewriting that benefit into the vocabulary, numbers and comparisons of forty different kinds of buyer, and reporting which denomination each kind actually answers.

The trap Producing a hundred fluent variations of a value nobody on the other side asked for. A machine fed your own description of your worth will polish your side of the table beautifully, which is a larger quantity of the denomination that was already failing.