Your Unique Selling Proposition

Your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)—whether for yourself or your business—is a critical part of your marketing success. How many times have you been at a business or social function when you were asked what you did? How did you answer? Were you able to articulate clearly in just a sentence or two what you did and explain it in a way that evoked genuine interest?

Certainly you’ve asked someone else what they did. And sometimes you probably wished you hadn’t because the response was either long, unintelligible, dull or all three.

The ideal is to be able to tell someone who you are, what you do and what’s special about that (translated how it might benefit them or someone else) in less than 90 seconds. Hopefully you’re excited about what you do, so be sure to let this enthusiasm come across. If you’ve done it well, the response should be, “No kidding, tell me more.”

Your USP should answer the following questions:
• What do you do? Who are you?
• What are the primary benefits to your service/product?
• How do you provide those benefits?
• Why would someone want to do business with you?

If you were to ask me SuccessNet’s USP today, I’d say, “We save people time and money by keeping them informed, inspired and directed toward their personal and professional best. We publish ideas and information, provide support and secure product and service discounts for our members. SuccessNet strives to make the navigation of change and uncertainty not only easier, but more fun!”

I’m not yet satisfied with this description. Perhaps I’ll never be quite satisfied with it and that’s probably good. Just like I’m never satisfied with what we do and how we do it. It’s called CANI—Constant And Never-ending Improvement.

How about you? Do you have a USP? Are you satisfied with it?