Dear Friend,
Welcome to this month’s issue of your newsletter. We’ve been getting a lot of calls from clients who right off the bat want to create a compelling USP or Unique Selling Point. Which is great, it’s just that some of you are struggling with this. So this month, I’m going to give you some tips on how to create your USP.
Let me take a minute explaining again what a USP is. According to my mentor Dan Kennedy, your USP must answer this question:
“Why should I do business with you, above any and all other options,
including doing nothing, or whatever I’m doing right now?”
Most business owners have a very poor answer to this question. Their answers are usually vague and general, and are totally incapable of making people want to business with them.
Your USP has to instantly tell people why they should consider doing business with you.
In addition to your USP answering the question, “Why should someone do business with you, above all other choices,” your USP must also be specific, concise, and meaningful.
Let me give you an example that Dan Kennedy used at his recent Marketing SuperConference. Dan talked about a well-known company, in an extremely competitive industry, that is the biggest in their field. And they became the biggest in their field all because of their USP. The company he described is… Domino’s Pizza.
Domino’s USP is…
“Fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed!”
I know that Domino’s Pizza has nothing to do with your business.. But it does have everything to do with how a winning USP should be written. This USP built Domino’s into a pizza empire!
Let’s look at what made Domino’s USP successful:
First, it answers the question of why I should do business with them. If I want fresh, hot pizza delivered to me, I will call Domino’s.
Secondly, this USP is very specific and meaningful. It doesn’t say “it’ll be there soon.” Or, “it will be delicious.” It says you will get fresh, hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes, guaranteed!
Can you imitate Domino’s Pizza USP for your business? How about something like this: “XYZ services or widgets delivered when promised, or it’s FREE!”
Another thing about USPs is, when you tell someone your USP, it should prompt this response:
“Really, how do you do that?”
Lets say you’re at a party and someone asks you what you do. Instead of telling them your “title”, tell them your USP. Because if you just tell them who you are, that person’s not going to say, “Really, how do you do that?”
With these USPs, there’s a good chance a prospect will ask you, “Really, how do you do that?” You then tell them how you do what you do, and how you do it so well.
How To Develop Your USP
The first real secret to developing your Unique Selling Point is to first develop your unique positioning of your business. Called a unique strategic position. This is the overall unique position you occupy in the public’s mind. What is your company’s dominance? What makes you special to your clients or prospects? If you don’t occupy a position in the public’s mind, then you have a marketing problem.
A strategic position statement is kind of like a mission statement for your company. You want to explain with this statement how you view your company and how you view it within the rest of your marketplace.
Nordstrom’s is a good example. It’s a department store that is making excellent profit margins while their competition is going out of business. They’ve taken a unique strategic position, being number one in service and taken that all the way down to their USP which is
“Service Above And Beyond All That Is Expected.”
It’s almost impossible to be the best in all categories and that’s why you need to figure out what makes your company unique and what your strategic positioning is going to be. What’s your number one calling card or claim to fame going to be?
There has been tons written about the subject, “positioning”. If you’re not familiar with this concept, then you should read the book “Positioning, The Battle For Your Mind” by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Positioning has been THE marketing philosophy for most successful companies over the last ten years.
But what is it? And how can you use it?
It’s like I said a little earlier, what place do you hold in the public’s mind? If the answer is none, then again, you have a problem.
If you hold no place or a negative one in your public or marketplace’s mind, then they’re not going to do business with you.
Some examples:
SONY has been first at innovation. They want to be first in whatever’s next in technology. WalMart is the cheapest price store that won’t be undersold. Price and full lines are their battlefields for your mind.
What’s the best battlefield (Strategic Position) for you to take?
You’ve got to understand that any decision to buy or use someone takes place in the mind. So, if you’re not in their mind then they probably won’t buy from you or use you.
You basically, “aren’t there” without a position.
Some of the most common examples of positioning are service, speed of delivery of service, latest technologies, guarantees, and lowest price.
Your company probably has already carved out a niche for itself of some kind. The problem here is that too many of you owners out there don’t even realize what the identity of that niche is. Often times the salespeople know what it is better than the owners do.
The customers really know best. What you need to do is find out from your best customers why they are doing business with you instead of someone else. This will tell you what your real niche or core competency is within your company right now.
If you think you do one thing and your customers think you do another, then you need to make a decision. What causes this difference in perception? Did your marketing do too good of a job advertising your weakness or what you do least instead of best? Have you changed the way you do things and haven’t let your market know yet?
If, from your results you think you’re marketing the wrong USP and losing business because your market has the wrong perception of you, then change it!
These are not minor decisions I’m asking you to make. They are also not minor decisions for your company. These can be make or break decisions. The good thing is you can survey your market. Track the results of sales. And make changes. What I mean is, that these decisions are critical to building a HIGH‑PROFIT business.
You have to communicate any changes to your market. A well stated USP is the way to do this.
Getting Into The Minds Of Your Prospects
So, how do we get into our prospects’ minds? We find or create our own position and communicate it over and over again, to the right target market.
Here is something you must keep in mind when marketing your company, and almost no one does:
You have to be perceived by the public
as being different from your competition!
Your prospects have to see you as having something different, something special that sets you apart from the other individuals and gives them a reason to call you.
Otherwise, there’s no reason for them to call you. They may call your competition or they may choose to call no one at all.
Good positioning just finds and communicates what’s different about you. What sets you apart from others that do the same work as you do. Determine what makes you unique, what your differences are, so the uninformed public will know how they will benefit by doing business with you.
I want you to stop for a second and get a pen and paper.
Got it? OK, I’ll wait.
Now, what you are going to want to come up with in determining your strategic position is the ability to communicate the following things:
- Who you are
- What you do
- Why you’re different
- How you can benefit your prospects
Of course you will have to know these answers yourself if you’re to communicate them to your market. So, get your pen and paper, and try and answer the above questions. You may not have the answers at first and that’s OK. That’s the point of this exercise.
There should be a lot of differences between you and others doing the same kind of work. If there aren’t then you’re not paying close enough attention or you need to invent some unique things that others don’t do.
Some examples might be:
- Open weekends and nights
- Special financing options
- New breakthrough equipment
- No premium for after hours work
- Family owned for 25 years
- You specialize in ___________
- Great guarantees
- Something for FREE
The next thing you want to write down are all the benefits of your company. Remember, a benefit is an answer to your client’s question,
“What’s in it for me?”
People will not use you unless they are going to get some kind of benefit. You have to clearly and succinctly tell and show them how they will benefit by doing business with you.
Benefits do not include things like:
- We really care
- Locally owned and operated
- Friendly service
- We’re #1
These things don’t really say what you’ll do for someone.
After you come up with as many benefits as possible, ask some of your customers what benefits they have gotten from your relationship. You know you should ask your customers, oops, clients for information. But how many of you actually do this?
You can come up with even more benefits by asking yourself, “What problems are solved by doing business with us?” This step sometimes is hard because you spend your time listing features instead of benefits.
Just remember a feature is an item or facet of your product or service. A benefit is what that feature will DO for someone.
You need to get used to seeing what people get from using your services or buying from you. What do they end up with when it’s all said and done? Do you ever get compliments/comments from your clients? How can you translate those into benefits?
You need to keep your focus. Really see things from the eyes of your clients. You not only have to listen to what they say about you being unique and how you uniquely solve their problems, but you also should use the language they would use to describe that uniqueness.
So, it is vitally important that you know the benefits you can give prospects and to be able to communicate this to them. When you speak to prospects or clients you must speak in client language. You must have the viewpoint of the consumer and talk in terms the consumer understands.
Think of it this way. If your best client were to tell someone else why they do business with you, what would they say?
Next I want you to write down the answer to the question:
How is your business (and you) better and different
than who you compete with?
Now, what does this mean? I want you to list all the ways that you think you are better than other individuals in your market. What you feel your strengths are. Very few can be good at all things and if you were, no one would believe you anyway. But for now, list all the ways you think you are better.
Keep in mind here you are going to want to tell your prospects how you are different than others in your profession without actually bad‑mouthing or slamming the other guy.
If you start saying “and I’ve done this and I’ve done that or we do this and that and that, and I’ve done the next thing… and I can do all these things for you,” pretty soon you’re the jack of all trades. Expert of none is what is believed.
Look at if from your public’s viewpoint:
- Are there ways you give better service than others?
- Are you more experienced in certain areas?
- Are you more personal, have better guarantees or better payment options?
- Do you have better equipment?
You might think this is too much work. Believe me, it’s not, if you want a profitable business. The only reason your public is uninformed about all of these things is because YOU haven’t informed them.
Now we’re done with most of the research. We’re ready to put all this information into a format you can use. You probably have found a few new things you can use to promote your business.
You now want to write a paragraph of say 20‑50 words, the fewer the better, that uses the best differences and benefits from your research. Communicate without any hype, who you are, what you do, and why you’re different and how you can benefit your prospects and clients.
In other words don’t say, “We are the most experienced in town”, which by the way is absolutely never believed by your public.
What you want to try and say is “We’ve been delivering quality products and services for 25 years.” The 25 years is the hidden proof of your experience. People know you must be able to back up the 25 years statement.
And finally, when creating your USP, you want to remember the emotion. Most people justify their purchase with logic. However, they make the purchase using emotion. They want to do business with you because you make them feel good, or smart about the decision or whatever. They need logical facts to back up the emotional decision they made. Don’t lose sight of this, it’s very important.
In summary, make a list of every possible way a person could possibly benefit from doing business with you. Your USP should state the biggest benefit and most unique benefit your prospects will get from doing business with you.
Your USP should be no more than three sentences long and one sentence is best. Keep chipping away at it. Eliminate any and all dead weight. Don’t stop until you have a crystal clear, concise, powerful USP you can put into action.
Take the time necessary to create a compelling USP that appeals to your prospects and clients. It will become the cornerstone of your business and it will drive every aspect of your marketing.
Once your USP is written, E-Mail it to me at info@MobileBizCard.com Please state what kind of business you are in (unless it’s obvious of course). Whoever E-Mails in the best USP will win a FREE case of AD Magnets. You get a choice from 9 different messages and a Qty of 200 a $47.97 value!. Deadline for this contest is September 30, 2009. I will announce the winner on my blog. So get to work on your USP and begin using it in all your marketing.
Wishing you massive profits and success;
Jon
Jon Davis is owner of Mobile Business Card Holders LLC and a small business marketing consultant. The firm specializes in low cost marketing strategies for big profits. You can visit his site at http://www.MobileBizCard.com or email him at Jon@MobileBizCard.com
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