Are You A Crayon, Or An Aspirin? Defining Your USP.

Are You A Crayon, Or An Aspirin? Defining Your USP.

I was involved in a webinar the other day about Defining your company's USP - Unique Selling Proposition.

The guest speakers were: Jean-Pierre Lacroix - Shikatani Lacroix Design and Michael McDerment  - FreshBooks - online invoicing and bookkeeping service for professionals. Fresh Books' USP: Painless billing.

They said a USP will help your product differentiate itself from the competition. What you stand for, what separates you, who you are. They said a simple USP is best.

USP's define what the unique needs are for your target clients. Called the ‘Hidden Need State". (need that the customer does not communicate but what drives the purchase decision)

To figure out your USP model, questions to ask are:

•1)      Define what makes you special - strengths, what makes you unique, what are your passions. What are your weaknesses; what is the competition doing you are not or don't want to.  Ask clients what they don't want to do. What are your threats, what competition is doing that will hurt you in the long run.

•2)      Identify the unique job, that you do, that delivers what no one else can to your clients. Identify the pain point of the client that you can remedy.

•3)      Value Proposition; what will the client be willing to pay for, to get what they want/need? What is your unique service, your strengths. How is your service differentiated from competitors?

•4)      Take V P and turn it into your USP.  Framing it in few words so staff & clients understand what it is you are delivering and why they should pay for it.

•5)      Make a tag line/slogan. Use a few words from the message, make it memorable, succinct.

When defining your USP:

Your customers will give you that answer. Branding is what other people think of you, not what you think of you.

Be emotive, people buy with emotion. Are you empowering your client? Do you make them feel smart?

Use Telephone surveys or web based surveys to get unbiased opinions. Survey monkey is a free survey engine.

What is missing in the market place that you can fill? What job needs to be done and what part of that is not getting done by the competition.

What drives your passion and makes you go to work? How can you use that to appeal to your clients. What gets you excited that will also excite the client?

Is your USP relevant to the industry?

Tune up your USP every few years by adjusting your ads and marketing to help communicate your USP.

Your USP should have minimum words - 4 words or less. Use emotion.

Your USP doesn't have to be complicated.

                            Are you a crayon- help people grow and make a brighter future

- or an aspirin - take the pain out of the clients life - ?

 Your USP should reflect which one you choose to be.

How can you integrate your USP into every part of your clients' experience?

This was a fascinating webinar and I will be using the strategies to figure out my USP. Hopefully this will help you if you are trying to figure out how to make yourself stand out in your field!