Know Your Unique Sales Proposition
What does your company do that’s better than everyone else? What differentiates you from your competitors? What’s your “secret sauce”? More importantly, do your customers and suppliers clearly understand what you do so well, and would they attest to it?
This is your company’s unique sales proposition (USP), defining your prime focus. Your USP gives your employees something to be proud of and is a key component of your value proposition. Your USP acts as a benchmark for your suppliers and sets the direction for your business. It is what makes you stand out in a competitive marketplace.
Defining Your USP
To define your USP, ask yourself these questions:
What is unique, different, unusual, or compelling about your company?
What does your company do? What business are you actually in?
How do your customers describe you?
Why do customers come to you in the first place?
Why do current customers come back for repeat business?
Why do you lose customers to competitors?
These questions will help guide your company to understand your USP better, and ultimately guide your company.
Many factors can contribute to your unique selling proposition. Your company’s uniqueness could come from the high-end product/service you offer, or the ideas and concepts you promote. It can also be influenced by your company’s interactions and relationships with its customers. Your company’s quality, community, and experience offered should all be aspects that reflect the company’s values and help differentiate itself.
Your Unique Selling Proposition is Fundamental
Your unique selling proposition is the foundation for your team’s vision and setting the direction. It will also become a key driver in developing your One-Page Business Plan. Once you determine the ways your company and its products/services are unique in your industry, then you can capitalize on your distinctiveness to attract customers.
Your USP can also be a guiding force to improving your company, and make sure that you are meeting customers' needs. When you understand your customers' needs that are not being met by competitors, you can utilize it to your advantage and adjust to meet them.
Leverage Your Uniqueness
The clearer your understanding of the company’s USP the better you will articulate to customers why your company has a competitive advantage. Customers will be able to clearly understand what your company has to offer them that the competitors cannot provide. By establishing the reasons your customers buy from you, you can leverage your advantages and market them to others. Think of it this way: imagine the power of being able to articulate your company’s fundamental value proposition in one or two sentences.