I risk boring you to the death with this whole USP thingy. It has been repeated more than 10 times on The Profits Academy portal.
I don’t care.
If you come out of this whole exercise alive, it means that you are cut out to do business at even higher levels than before. If you take this exercise lightly and fail at some point in the future, go ahead and blame it on the economy, on the weather, on government policies, I don’t really care.
Charles Darwin would have labelled you as weak, incompetent, and naturally eaten up by other competitors in your industry.
Having said that, I hope to have drilled some sense into your mind about the importance of forging a solid differentiating strategy into the core of your business.
Hold My Hands Now
This is where I’ll virtually sit next to you, and help you to craft your most compelling USP yet.
Dig out those ol’ dusty yellow pages from over the years, but preferably current editions- The newer, the better.
1)Go to the section that best mirrors your industry.
If you’re in the catering business, go look under Catering. If you’re in the massage business, look under Massage. Got it?
2)Now what you do next is simple. Write down EVERY benefit, promise, feature or statement on each ad. For example…
We provide HALAL certified catering for customers.
We provide hot, fresh food for minimum of 10 clients.
We povide FREE delivery for orders amounting above $500
Or
We provide young, beautiful masseuses
We provide 24 hours massage service to your hotel or apartment
We are a discreet service
Notice the emboldened words? Those are their USP, or benefit, or features.
Do this for ALL the ads you find in your industry.
Once you have found an ad which pretty much has the same promise/USP, place a tick sign against it.
What you will find is glaringly astounding.
EVERY ONE IS SAYING THE SAME THING!
If everyone in your industry is saying the same thing, how would they differentiate themselves? This would undoubtedly lead to one thing…….
BUYING BASED ON PRICE.
Now, if you are customer, and saw all these ads, basically offering the same things, with identical offers etc, how would your decision making process be? PRICE, of course.
This would be good for an advertiser, if you were the CHEAPEST, but there can only be ONE cheapest guy in the whole of the Yellow Pages. You have succesfully commoditized your business. (And this is NOT a good thing)
What you would need to do, is to craft your USP DIFFERENTLY from all that junk and clutter in the Yellow Pages. Be different. For if you positioned your business differently from others, you can command a higher, premium price.
You will be able to conduct your business in a vacuum. You will not be selling your products/services on damned PRICE alone.
WITHOUT THIS, YOU ARE MERELY A CHOICE.
WITH THIS, YOU CAN BE THE CHOICE
This exercise helps because it alerts you to what your competitors are saying/promising/doing, so that you can exploit their weaknesses and offer something more compelling in return.