Stand Apart From The Crowd

18th June 2015

I spent a very constructive and interesting afternoon last week with one of my clients talking about why people should chose them and not any of their competition. Essentially we were working on their Unique Selling Point (USP) which, as I always tell my clients, is seldom one part of their service or one product, but almost always a combination of several good points. Some of your competition may be providing some of the things you do. And some may be providing others, but your uniqueness comes from the sum of all the things you do being better and greater than any of them.

Time spent on things like this, is never time wasted, because it makes you take a good hard look at yourself, and see what the client or potential client is seeing. If it is not as good as the competition, or is perhaps focussing on things which your target market might consider less important to them, then you will need to address this as quickly as possible.

Everything you think of which you consider part of your uniqueness must also be of benefit to your clients, not just something which you think looks or sounds good. A tip I was given to check that something is a benefit or not, is to put the words “which means that” after each point. If you can’t think of anything good to add after those words, then it probably isn’t a benefit (e.g. we get it to you faster “which means that” you wont have so much down time, is a clear benefit, but if getting it to them faster only means it arrives with them quicker, then it is not).

Of course USP’s are vital for everyone, because it allows you to add value and charge more. If you can’t define your USP, then you are probably just another “me too”, and you will end up fighting for new clients on price alone!

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