James Malinchak’s Strategies To Determine Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Establishing a business was not a problem for Gloria. All of her life, what she had wanted to do was to build a take-away lunch shop like the one she remembered from the corner of the street she lived as a child. She had finished her catering education and had taken a variety of business management courses to give her the confidence to own her very own business. However, there was a problem she had not considered. There was now a multitude of lunch possibilities for the working population of her area.

The explosion in the fast food market meant that the competition was fierce and so Gloria considered her options. She could either let go of her business plan or do something else with her catering/business background. However, she could come up with a plan which would give her an advantage over her competitors. With her catering experience, she suddenly realized what she could offer over the other sandwich and doughnut outlets; on top of the original lunch options, she could offer a home-made equivalent of a TV dinner, a meal that can be popped in the microwave for a quick hot meal.

Meals in Minutes would be her unique selling position - her USP. A price list delivered to all the local businesses proclaimed the virtues of eating a nutritional meal every day, and promising them that her "meals in minutes" will give them exactly that without the fuss of shopping and cooking - they can even email their orders in to her and collect them at lunch-time.

Along side, the baked potato and sandwich menu, she created a small menu of meals that could be either eaten on the day, or put in the freezer and frozen as an emergency stand-by. As she created every meal from a variety of components, hungry shoppers had a choice of potatoes, rice or pasta, to accompany their choice of meat, fish or vegetable main dish, and a selection of 2 vegetables. She prepared the food the day before and cooked it on the morning that it was sold.

At first she was unsure if the idea would fly with customers and so only prepared small amounts of the food products required for the meals, but each day she sold out within a couple of hours, and within a month of opening she was hiring additional staff. To her surprise, she realized that she was earning almost as much on the meals as she was on the lunches. Customers started to buy two and three meals at a time, busy mothers and wives happy to be able to serve up freshly cooked meals to their families. Her unique selling position had paid off, and not only that, she had a thriving business which was soon being expanded into a number of other locales.

How many people do you know who sell pretty much the identical service or product as you do? There are likely thousands of sales people who all have the same prospect list as you. Why should that prospect pick you over them? That's where the value lies in discovering your unique selling position.

The word unique means that this has to be something that you can offer that no-one else has until this point. Be aware they will copy it if it is successful. You need to think about your USP on a regular basis and stay ahead of the pack. Your USP is something that will set you apart from the crowd. So what can it be?

Think about your product or service for a moment. Now think about the prospect. What can you do that will make your product stand out as being more attractive to the prospect?

A unique selling position can cause extra work in some way - but it will be worth it when you see the more sales you generate as a result of publicizing your USP. Offering a free replacement of a piece of equipment whilst a broken one is fixed, is a good USP because being without the equipment could mean a loss of business for the client. However, it is possible that your USP is not anything extra at all. It could be no more than looking at what you already do from a different perspective. For example, when you meet with a prospect, do not call it a meeting at their office, call it an in-house consultation.

Your USP might be to offer free consultations to discuss how your products could increase a client's profits - same meeting but implies something more than just a sales discussion. Imagine your sales brochure "Printing Solutions for All Situations - Call us today for a FREE In-House Consultation on How We can help You do Better!" If you provide a service, offer to let them test-drive the service for a few weeks free! "We wouldn't expect you to purchase a car without a test-drive, and we don't expect you to sign up our services without trying us out - sign up for a free test-drive of our cleaning package today by ringing ….."

What you need to remember with a USP is that it must be related to your product, or service, and it must enhance it in some way that encourages people to want to place their order with you instead of with your competitors. It should also be something you can easily use in your publicity material, so that it stands out amongst the other similar brochures on a prospects desk. A good USP will be one of the most effective weapons you can have in your sales toolbox. Therefore, invest your time creating one that fits your product or service, and then put it to work!

"You get out in front - you stay out in front." A.J. Foyt

James Malinchak, Presented on ABC’s Hit TV Program Secret Millionaire, is recognized as by a lot of professionals as the World’s #1 Big Money Speaker Coach and Trainer. For Absolutely free Video Trainings on how to receive money to speak and the way to be a effective presentation skills, try read this and learn more.