Innovation Insights  Workflow Redesign: Overcoming Objections to Your Positioning
TABLE OF CONTENTS
If Workflow Redesign Feels Overwhelming, Read This
Running Example
Bringing it all together (running example)
Worksheet: Workflow Redesign
Step 1: Copy the Workflow Redesign Worksheet
Step 2: Fill out the Workflow Redesign Tab
Step 3: Send Me Your Workflow Redesign Worksheet
Next: Overcoming Objections with Offers

Workflow Redesign: Overcoming Objections to Your Positioning

Overcome objections in your messaging and positioning with workflow redesign description

Strategic Vision
Dan Wu, JD/PhD Dan Wu, JD/PhD
Feb 17, 2025
Guidance on the confusing contract to cash tool landscape
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Overcome objections in your positioning with a Workflow Redesign statement
 
This is a series about building and testing your messaging, positioning, and value proposition

#1 - Messaging & Positioning Template for Social Impact Leaders
#2 - Messaging & Positioning Template: (i) Customer Unmet Needs & (ii) Worksheet
#3 - Messaging & Positioning Template: (i) Ideal Client Profile & (ii) Worksheet
#4 - Messaging & Positioning Template: (i) Differentiators & (ii) Worksheet
#5 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Market Category
#6 - Overcoming Objections to Positioning: (i) Proof; (ii) Workflow Redesign; (iii) Offers
#7 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Testing
#8 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Learning from Data
 

If Workflow Redesign Feels Overwhelming, Read This

Broad claims like "we boost your revenue" or "we bring in more customers" often fall flat because they’re too vague, even if they align with what customers ultimately want. These generic statements leave people wondering what you actually do and how you deliver results.
While pinpointing unmet needs and unique solutions helps, there's another trick up your sleeve: the Workflow Redesign Statement. This statement encourages you to focus on a specific workflow, including a specific series of actions, tied to their desired outcome and show exactly how you’ll improve it. This approach bridges the gap between unmet needs and unique solutions.
(This concept is also referred to as use case, scenario, process, action sequence, or a myriad other terms. Because the most popular term “use case” can be confused with its more technical homonym, I use focus on “workflow” and typical focus on specific actions).
In
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Customer Unmet Needs: Messaging and Positioning Template, you’ve already pinpointed your top workflow of concern. So the goal here is to just flesh this out further into a statement that supplements your core messaging and positioning statement
This means you’ll double click into the top specific workflow key to their dream outcome that you radically improve.
By taking this approach, you're not just clarifying your value prop - you're beefing up your credibility. It lets you showcase your secret sauce more effectively by demonstrating how it would work and address the core unmet need of your target audience.
At Joyful Ventures, our innovation advisors specialize in helping social impact leaders like you create people-first innovation that maximize your and your organization’s impact.

Running Example

Here’s an example for community health fundraisers who want to personalize donor campaigns (our running example throughout the series)
The below attempts to be both specific and concise about key actions currently taken and how those will be changed, helping your target gain new capabilities to address their core unmet needs.
After this example, I’ll share some notes breaking down its key components.
Workflow Redesign Statement
Today to personalize donor campaigns, you have to:
  • Create personalized messages for each donor segment, which is overwhelming at scale and risks feeling robotic when rushed because only surface-level details, like names, are changed
  • Manually generate multiple campaign reports, an exhausting process of trial-and-error that requires navigating endless clicks and holding repetitive meetings, delaying team alignment and slowing your next campaign’s launch
Delays from your overloaded campaign to-do list leave donors feeling disconnected, while inauthentic messages go unheard, driving donor churn that puts your mission-critical programs at financial risk
Instead with our Donor Engagement Platform, you can personalize donor campaigns without Tedious data segmentation or Inauthentic messaging at scale
  • Quickly review and approve AI-generated email drafts pre-filled with donor-specific insights; our AI learns from every interaction to craft messages that feel deeply personal, saving you hours of manual effort
  • With one click, access a real-time dashboard that visualizes campaign performance and provides actionable insights tailored to your goals, helping you make faster, smarter decisions for your next campaign, and always stay one step ahead
Say goodbye to weeks of delays and generic messaging—our AI crushes your campaign to do list, grows loyal donor communities that reduce churn and support your mission’s long-term financial health
 
Here’s a breakdown of key components in the example above
The first section dives into how your target approaches the workflow in question today. You’ve identified many of these items in
🪴
Customer Unmet Needs: Messaging and Positioning Template.
  • Top Name of Workflow. This workflow represents a series of concrete and specific actions tied directly to their unmet needs—actions that are often riddled with inefficiencies or pain points.
  • Current Actions. Next, you examine what happens now: how this workflow is currently executed and where it falters. These limitations are not abstract; they are tangible barriers that prevent your audience from achieving their desired outcomes. By articulating these flaws clearly, you set the stage for transformation in the next section.
  • Impact. Finally, you explore the impact of these limitations—not just on the workflow itself but on broader organizational goals. What does it cost your audience when this process fails? What opportunities are lost? These questions underline the stakes and create urgency for change.
 
The next section shifts focus to solutions—how your approach transforms their current workflow into something better.
  • New Actions. Next comes reimagining the workflow without its two most significant limitations. This isn’t merely an exercise in theory; it’s a practical demonstration of what’s possible when those barriers are removed. What new actions can your audience take now? How do these changes address their core unmet needs? By painting this picture vividly, you help them visualize a better way forward—one that feels both achievable and transformative.
  • Impact. Finally, tie everything back to outcomes—the dream state your audience aspires to reach. Show them how these changes ripple outward, creating not just immediate benefits but lasting organizational impact.
 

Bringing it all together (running example)

Customer Unmet Needs
DonorFamily: We are a Donor Engagement Platform helping Community health fundraisers personalize donor campaigns without tedious data segmentation or inauthentic messaging at scale -- Minimizing churn and growing thriving donor communities
Unique differentiator
Our AI crafts personalized campaigns for you, then auto-generates reports your leadership will love. By tapping into donor passions, and quietly learning from their responses, we become experts on your donors at scale, helping them integrate into your community of donors in record time. Double retention in just six months with only a few hours of effort a week.
Proof
See how Kaiser Permanente reduced donor churn by 123% in one quarter [Link to case study]. “Strongly recommend — our donors are giving even more than before.” — Chief Development Officer of Kaiser
Workflow Redesign Statement
Today to personalize donor campaigns, you have to:
  • Create personalized messages for each donor segment, which is overwhelming at scale and risks feeling robotic when rushed because only surface-level details, like names, are changed
  • Manually generate multiple campaign reports, an exhausting process of trial-and-error that requires navigating endless clicks and holding repetitive meetings, delaying team alignment and slowing your next campaign’s launch
Delays from your overloaded campaign to-do list leave donors feeling disconnected, while inauthentic messages go unheard, driving donor churn that puts your mission-critical programs at financial risk
Instead with our Donor Engagement Platform, you can personalize donor campaigns without Tedious data segmentation or Inauthentic messaging at scale
  • Quickly review and approve AI-generated email drafts pre-filled with donor-specific insights; our AI learns from every interaction to craft messages that feel deeply personal, saving you hours of manual effort
  • With one click, access a real-time dashboard that visualizes campaign performance and provides actionable insights tailored to your goals, helping you make faster, smarter decisions for your next campaign, and always stay one step ahead
Say goodbye to weeks of delays and generic messaging—our AI crushes your campaign to do list, grows loyal donor communities that reduce churn and support your mission’s long-term financial health
 
 

Worksheet: Workflow Redesign

Now it’s your turn to put this into practice.

Step 1: Copy the Workflow Redesign Worksheet

Fill this out. Provide comments on this article.
Request access. I give access to those who fill the form out above.
 

Step 2: Fill out the Workflow Redesign Tab

This is the key information that will help you create a rough “workflow redesign” statement.
Go to the tab “Workflow Redesign” and review top workflow you selected in Persona Worksheet: A Systematic Approach. Try your best use the same language your target customer uses to describe this workflow.
 
Fill out the rows based on your understanding of your market (or do more more market research as necessary)
 
Open up column B to see example AI prompts you can modify to generate new results.
 
Complete self-assessments, aiming to get your score at least a “high” on each criteria.
 
Finally, view and refine the draft workflow redesign statements at the very top, which are broken into before and after.
 

Step 3: Send Me Your Workflow Redesign Worksheet

That way I can take a look and give you feedback.

Next: Overcoming Objections with Offers

Our next section will equip you with another proven method to overcome objections, using offers that address your prospects perceived barriers to succeeding with your solution.
What is your biggest challenge in this process? Share your feedback here or hit the toggle button (+) on the left.
 
See the next article in the series below
This is a series about building and testing your messaging, positioning, and value proposition

#1 - Messaging & Positioning Template for Social Impact Leaders
#2 - Messaging & Positioning Template: (i) Customer Unmet Needs & (ii) Worksheet
#3 - Messaging & Positioning Template: (i) Ideal Client Profile & (ii) Worksheet
#4 - Messaging & Positioning Template: (i) Differentiators & (ii) Worksheet
#5 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Market Category
#6 - Overcoming Objections to Positioning: (i) Proof; (ii) Workflow Redesign; (iii) Offers
#7 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Testing
#8 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Learning from Data
 
 

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Dan Wu, JD/PhD
Dan Wu, JD/PhD

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