I’ll be direct here. Nothing, and dare i repeat, nothing even comes close to this singular tip when it comes to marketing your business.

It’s called USP. Or Unique Selling Proposition.

In today’s ultra cluttered and competitive business environment, you need a ultra focused,  a truly great marketing message that differentiates YOU from the REST of your competitors within your industry. In other words, your USP needs to answer one question that is often stuck in your prospective customers’ minds.

The Question You Need To Answer 

“Why the hell do I, as a customer, have to choose YOUR business’ product, service, or offering over the thousand other similar companies selling the same darn thing that you are?”

To put it bluntly:

If you sell pizza, why should a customer choose YOUR pizza?

If you sell insurance, why should i purchase a plan from YOU?

If you sell car decals, why should i decorate my car with YOUR decals?

If you sell carpets, why should i purchase YOUR carpets?

Too many business owners I’ve come across don’t even know their business’ outstanding feature, or key differentiator.

The difference between a successful business owner, and a mediocre or failing one, is this:

The Successful Business owner sees the market as a Pie, and he wants as much of the pie as he can, doing whatever he can to take more than his “fair share”

The Mediocre or Failing Business owner also sees the market as a pie, BUT they think the pie divides itself automatically, and they just accept whatever the share that is given to them. In other words, they see their market as a pie which is finite, and do not realistically think that they can do anything to get more than what they’ve been getting, for the past 10 years that they have been in business for.

And there is no better way to grab a larger slice of the pie, than to DIFFERENTIATE yourself from the thousands of other businesses within your industry.

Let me just put it in simple terms by using some examples above.

1)If you sell pizza, why should a customer choose YOUR pizza?

Because our pizzas are delivered HOT, to your doorstep, within 20 mins or less, or else it’s completely FREE OF CHARGE! (This was the original Domino’s Pizza Promise”

2)If you sell insurance, why should i purchase a plan from YOU?

Because our insurance company is the only one that automatically protects your children, when you insure both parents.

(The way this insurance company makes money is because, statistically, they know that having done the maths, the odds of children being mortally injured before the age of 60 is significantly low, and the added cost of offering automatic insurance for them is negligible. On the other hand, offering this plan, appeals to parents and families, and thus they get more sales, and further offsetting the added costs of insuring children automatically)

3)If you sell car decals, why should i decorate my car with YOUR decals?

Because we are the only decal company in town that offers a double money back guarantee in the event that the decals peel off before it’s 3 year warranty)

4)If you sell carpets, why should i purchase YOUR carpets?

Because our carpets are the easiest carpets to wash when it comes to stains- This added advantage appeals most to day care centres, families with young children (who for some odd reason loves to roll food on the carpets rather than on their plates).

 Now here’s a quick exercise for you- 

Take a piece of paper and a pen.

Write down, at least 2 or 3 things that you can do to differentiate your product or service from your competitors.

If you come up with a blank piece of paper, then you’re in big trouble. The problem is not your industry- Its YOU, the business owner.

And if you DID come up with something, don’t rest on your laurels just quite yet. Run through the list of items that you think you’ve been able to differentiate, and ask yourself, do these differentiators mean a damn thing to your prospects/customers?

What do i mean by that?

For example, if you run an tuition centre, and you stated your key differentiator as “We provide tutors to your home for convenience.”

So? Is that even special nowadays? Doesn’t every Tom’s, Jones’s, Sarah’s and Keith’s tuition centre offer the same?

So providing home tuition isn’t a USP, it isn’t a viable key differentiator, because everybody else is doing it.

For a differentiator to be a GOOD one, it also has to MATTER to your customers. If you said that your tuition business is the only one that offers enquiries via SMS, that is a valid differentiating point. BUT, will your customers even care? Wouldn’t they prefer a direct line that they could call into and enquire?

In the next article, i will show you a way how you can prevent commoditization of your business’ products and services. This step alone could potentially double your revenue before year end. I kid you not.

P.S: If you had difficulty with your USP or Key Differentiating point exercise above, feel free to attend one of our free MasterMind sessions or SMS me directly at 81818929 (Singapore line) or email us if you’re from South East Asia outside of Singapore)