3 Steps to Define Your Unique Selling Proposition

Your Unique Selling Proposition Needs To Be Unique To You

In order to be able to succeed in business, the one question any business owner has to be able to answer is: why should someone want to buy what you offer, and more specifically from you?

In your mind, you might think this would be obvious, but unless you are able to translate it to your potential customers and then back up those claims with your those that choose to purchase from you, you will struggle to get sales. This is where defining your unique selling proposition comes into play.

Your unique selling proposition is where you look to define the aspects of your product or service that sets you apart from those of your competitors.

1. Evaluate your strengths and weakness – It doesn’t matter how good a product or service you have or company you operate, there are things that are great and others that detract. In defining your unique selling proposition, it is important to explore the strengths and weaknesses of all aspects of your offering through to the end use by your customer. This includes everything from how an order is made, straight through to how things are handled if your customer is unhappy. In this step it is important to look at things critically from an outside perspective. Business owners can have blinders on, especially when it comes to how weaknesses could be impacting the customers impression of their product or service. If you can define the problem, you can fix it. Taking the time to get clear on where issues are, can save a lot of time, money and effort to creating a unique selling proposition.
2. Step into your customer’s shoes – You could have the best product or service on the market, but unless you can understand the hurdles your customer has in choosing it, you will never be able to knock those down. The thing I think many business owners forget, is that chances are, your potential customers likely already have a solution to problem, you think you are solving. Now it may not be an optimal solution, but they have a solution that they know works. This is the biggest hurdle you are looking to overcome…how do I convince someone to try what I am offering? In some cases, your customers don’t think they have the problem, you are telling them they have. In other cases, you are trying to convince them to leave something they believe is already working.  The reality is you are attempting to get them to change their behaviour, but unless you really look at this from their perspective, you likely won’t build the unique selling proposition that will attract them.
3. Define your target customer – So many times, business owners don’t want to limit their target audience, especially when they first get into business, because they feel it will limit their sales. I know this is counterintuitive, but in fact the opposite is true. The clearer you are in who you are selling to, the easier it is to sell to them. It doesn’t matter the product or service, there are some portions of the market that will be interested in specific aspects of what you offer. Defining your target market, allows you to define your messaging so that it speaks directly to them. It helps ensure you are using the right channels to get them information and it ensures the aspects of your unique selling proposition are meaningful, thereby generating more interest in what you are doing.

If you believe that you should be making more revenue, then there is a chance that you haven’t quite got your unique selling proposition defined correctly. Take a step back, follow these steps and look at what you have to offer, you might find something you hadn’t noticed, that could make a huge difference in the long run.