If you’ve been waiting for your USP to fall into your lap, I’m sharing five key questions you need to answer to nail that USP in your business. These questions will uncover the concrete USP that will lead you to dominate your marketplace. Regardless of how saturated your market is right now.
- Why your CONCRETE USP is more powerful than the average USP
- And will make you the go-to for your ideal clients.
- Plus, helps you grow and scale your business.
Listen using the player above or read the blog below.
Why a USP?
A USP is now the only way to dominate the market. There is so much saturation and competition of people doing the exact same as you. So, until you discover what makes you unique, you are an apple comparing yourself to an apple.
Even if you want to stay in your own lane – you still need to find what makes you unique to attract your tribe. Then people can differentiate when they are correct for you. You being your USP is not enough. If you read my book, Expert Unrivalled, you read about the cocktail about what makes you and your business unique.
One of those reasons is the Unique Magic Bullet – which is what you put a name to – and makes you unique as a business. The problem with you being the unique element means that your business is not scalable. Clients will only want you. Therefore you need a method you extract so it is not always you that people want time from.
You can absolutely have a USP that’s attached to you, especially if you want to stick with 1-1. If you are looking to scale your business, then you need to think about a USP that’s separate from you.
Nailing your USP
It’s likely that your USP does exist in some way but it can be foggy and you might not have nailed it down succinctly. Most of the time, it’s about creating a USP rather than trying to find one. We have to put a spotlight on a particular area to focus on and pull it out as a feature of what it is that you do. Compared to right now where it’s all intertwined and you’re probably doing a bit of it but not really aware of it. Some clients might pick up on it but not everyone.
One of the great things about what I do is to help you zone in on where your expertise lies. It’s thinking about how what you do will benefit your ideal client. Then you focus on what it is you do that benefits your ideal client. Then you articulate the transformation you deliver so you can focus on it more.
You do need to shift your thinking into what you can create here. Here are five questions to uncover your USP.
1. Who are you targeting and what is the problem that is unique to them?
Unless you know what their problem is, the USP is pointless. Many people are unique but are you being useful? The point of a USP is that it is a selling point and you create something that serves a purpose. You can be unique and completely useless.
You need to know the problem. For example, in EverTrek one of the problems people have is that they are unsure they are fit enough to go on a trek in another country at high altitude. They might be used to hiking in the UK, such as the Three Peaks. It is another thing to fly to another country and tackle terrain and weather like they’ve not experienced before.
There are nerves around wanting to book but being scared they cannot do it. You might think that the problem we solve is how to book on to trips – but that’s what every other travel company does. Actually, we do that but we have a secondary problem. Is there a secondary problem to focus on?
What is unique to your ideal client?
If you look at my coaching business, the biggest problem I solve is saturation in terms of being so many coaches and experts doing the same thing. I help people stand out, charge more and be more financially profitable. This is my main focus in terms of my marketing. Yet, having run several businesses, people trust me to solve things in many business areas.
2. Are you a shoot the shark or a build the bridge business?
Are you helping someone build a bridge to a particular result? Is the result aspiration? It fulfils a strong desire. What are people motivated by?
If you are on an island and looking to build a bridge to another island, but you have a shark snapping at your ankles before you can even think about that bridge. You cannot focus on building the bridge until you get rid of the big juicy problem in your way.
For example, a gut-health coach would be more of a ‘shoot the shark’ business dealing with that immediate problem. It’s a painful issue that needs solving. If the problem is more painful than the outcome, they want to get over to the transformation.
Where are your customers in their journey? Are they in pain or actually okay and ready for their next stage of business? If they are ready for the next stage, then they need a ‘build the bridge’ business.
Figuring this out will help you discover your USP. A lot of the time, businesses whoa re more ‘shoot the shark’ it’s about finding the science in their method. Clients will have tried a few times to figure out how to solve their problem. Nothing has worked to date. So you need to present a new solution about why your way works better than anything else out there.
When it comes to Market Leader League, I am very much a ‘build a bridge’ business. Clients are motivated by a positive outcome. It is very aspirational. I do solve the bleeding neck problems but the motivation is to get to that transformation. So I can position my messaging around that transformation around the outcomes they can achieve.
3. Will they struggle to solve their problem using methods already out there?
Do a comparison against what is out there or what they can do on their own. This requires market research and considering who else does what they do. You can think about some of the reasons why any past clients haven’t got the results they wanted. If the client doesn’t do the work, then be careful here.
For example, say you are a business coach and that your client struggled with the tech, which is why they didn’t get the result they wanted. It wasn’t to do with you. Is that a target market you’d like to focus on? Can you create a USP around this secondary issue?
Why are people struggling and what is going on? Or you might discover the kinds of people you don’t want to work with. So you get more clarity with who you want to work with and who you don’t.
4. Why does your method work better than all the other methods out there?
Why will your client now finally be able to reach their goal? And overcome their problem?
When you’ve done the background work, identify what you need to add in or do differently in your method. You need to plot your client’s journey and the stepping stones to where they want to be. How does this work? What do they need to do? Then look at why this journey works so well. When you get to this element, it will help you think about your USP.
For example, look at Apple and the MacOs is a selling point. This makes it run faster and can cope better with more tabs and the amount of work you need to do. Think about what you create and how you can extract it and give it a name. I have no idea how the MacOS works but I know it does. It’s easy to understand.
5. What can you add on as a ‘done-for-you’ solution?
What will amplify results and make it quicker and cheaper? What can you add on to help them further? You don’t have to do this because you might not want to offer this service. It could be that you don’t help them with tech but you bring someone in to help them do that. Or you hire someone and price it into your costs.
There are other ways you can do this. I’ve worked with someone who has added on an extra service to take the stress out of the situation. Not everyone needs to do this.
The one thing that pulls you apart and makes you the choice to buy from so you can start to dominate your market is the concrete USP.
Useful links:
Book a Call with Jen – bit.ly/claritycallpodcast
Download my FREE Seven Figure Market Leader Roadmap –http://www.marketleaderleague.com/marketleaderroadmap/
Send your emails to jen@jen-hall.com
Available on Apple iTunes, Spotify & Stitcher (Just search Expert Unrivalled Podcast)