Do you really need to find your USP?

Please note this transcript is machine generated so it is not perfect and should be used for reference only, you will get the best from the podcast by listening to it in it's designed format

00:00:00.210
Find out in this episode whether you actually need to find your USPI or not. Hello and welcome to the expert unrivalled podcast. My name's Jen Hall, I'm your business positioning coach and market leadership expert. This episode, I'm answering the question on whether you need to know your USP or not. But before I dive in on this particular question, I just want to give the amazing Lucy Orton a big shout out and say thank you so much for leaving such an awesome review for the podcast.

00:00:45.260
Lucy says, I absolutely love. Jen's podcast is packed with amazing expert insight and tips from someone who really knows what they're talking about. I'm now working with Jen and she's an awesome coach. Can't recommend her enough. If you have ambitious plans for your business, if you're wondering about booking, cool with her to see how you could work together, don't hesitate. Thanks again. Now, Lucy is an incredible client of mine. She focuses in on helping those who have a side hustle business to beat procrastination and self sabotage once and for all to actually start progressing their business and create a full time success.

00:01:21.710
So if you are one of these people who are suffering with procrastination and self sabotage at the moment and you know, those mind gremlins are getting in the way of your progress, then do make sure that you contact Lucy Oughton. She really hones in on helping you achieve what she calls a progressive mindset. Now, thank you so much for that review, Lucy. Really, really appreciate it. If you are listening to this and you are finding my podcast valuable, and please do leave me a review.

00:01:52.310
Not only is it lovely to hear, but it's also great for pushing their podcasts up the ranks and getting more listener listeners to hear the epic content that ensues. So you will also get an awesome shout out as well, just like Lucy has today. So please do make sure that you leave a review if you are finding these useful. And on another note, as Lucy says, if you are looking to progress your business, take it from where it is now to becoming a successful market leader that can reach seven figures and beyond and do make sure that you do become cool with me.

00:02:24.980
They are super non pressured charts. So do make sure you put that in the show notes. The link is there that you can just click, find an appropriate time in the diary and book it in. Now back to the question of whether you actually need to know what your USP is or not. Now, this is a really interesting question and it's a question that was asked on a thread on Facebook, actually. So there was a really interesting thread put out by the wonderful Abigail Horne around something she'd noticed that was going on on the Internet, where people were being asked, what's your USP?

00:03:02.930
And people were finding it quite difficult to actually answer it. And it's true. People find this question really, really difficult to answer. And one of the reasons for this is because it seems so intangible and we actually don't know where to begin. And what we think might be unique isn't because it feels like everyone else is doing something similar. And also on the other side of it is that we wonder how we can actually articulate that as a benefit as well, that we might know what's unique about us.

00:03:37.430
But actually, how is that how is that of benefit to the market? And I think that's the difficulty and there the real challenges that entrepreneurs and business owners come up against. And this is why I'm so excited by what I do. This is why I'm so fired up by my specialism in helping in this exact area, because I feel like actually is needed, because this question was asked. You know, I'm not sure whether I actually need to know what my USPI is because I'm already making, for instance, a decent amount of money.

00:04:11.780
So why would I need to know what my USP is? Now, here's the thing. If you don't know what your USP is and you are just riding off the back of your nation, what you do here is what can happen. So first of all, if you were in this position, congratulations, you're making money from your business. You've obviously got a great niche. And you're obviously able at this point to articulate the value of what you do, which is really, really important.

00:04:43.670
It's the first stage of any business is to figure out how am I adding value to my clients, articulating that in a way that makes it tangible and sell that one as a product to market. They give you money. Bob's your uncle. Fantastic.

00:04:57.170
But the problems lie is beyond that. So a lot of the time you can absolutely market on that basis. We really need to make any kind of money is the right eyeballs and the right offer. So you've got the right kind of person in front of you who needs what you've got and you give them that. The problem comes when you have more people like you say, particularly in any industry, every market is saturated. And, you know, from my experience, that's very rare that you find an untapped market.

00:05:28.840
It's very rare that you find an industry where you're the only person to serve that market in that particular way. Doesn't really matter how far you reach down, there will always, always be somebody who is doing something similar to you, you know, and it doesn't matter how great you are or what you do in order to generate called clients, you need to really be able to find something that makes you stand out amongst that lineup of other people that do what you do.

00:06:01.840
And that's the key that really is that, yes, if you can get in front of people who are not shopping around, who are just hooked on you from the word go, and again, that is possible. But when you want to start dominating a market and reaching a wider market, you can't bank on that happening every single time. You know, when you start reaching a wider market, you will start coming across more savvy buyers who want to make sure that they're making the right decision.

00:06:31.000
And actually, that's happening more and more right now, particularly after Cofidis hit. People have become much more mindful about what they're spending their money on. They become becoming more mindful about their next move. People have actually, you know, it's a positive become far more strategic in their thinking that they're having to be. That's how we're being forced to adapt. It's either collapse in fear and, you know, and that's where some of this whole mental health issues are happening.

00:07:01.120
People are unfortunately not coping right now. So, again, that's not a whole nother conversation. And that's not that's not really what I was here to talk to you guys about today. But that's happening as well, obviously. And I don't want to hide from that. But Converse's either is either do that or start thinking more strategically and start surviving, start finding a new way of adapting to the situation. And that means that we're having to bring on that real critical thinking skill.

00:07:25.360
And that's what our buyers are currently doing. That's how our market is changing. We're becoming far more strategic about where putting our money, who we're putting our money with. And so therefore people want solid reasons as to why they should be putting their money with you. Why should they trust you? Why what's the benefits of what's CROI and why would you go? Why would you pick you versus blocks up the road? He does the same thing and that's where you're at.

00:07:52.990
That's why I believe it's so important to hone in on what your US is. And in fact, I've used the wrong words and, you know, honing in your USPI, sometimes it's it's easy to do.

00:08:06.040
You know, I've used this example before of my amazing mortgage advisor, Saluki, how she does what I love, what a lot of other mortgage advisors do. She could technically be an apple compared to another apple, but she was actually already doing something within her business that no one else was doing, or at least they weren't talking about it.

00:08:28.420
They knew she was chasing solicitors. She was chasing estate agents, liaising with accountants to make sure that not only did I have a mortgage, but I also had a a mortgage without all of the stress included that she would do all of that chasing for me. Now, that is a big reason as to why if I had to pick another mortgage advisor again, obviously I love her anyway. But equally, if I was coming in cold, I'd be like, no, I would absolutely want you.

00:08:55.720
Because if you get an offer that to me, I don't know, why would I turn that down? And no one else was really shouting about that and doing that. And so I absolutely wanted would did and would still want to work with her because of that fact. So we productize Thyne to a trusted chasing and the easy service that she provides, so she's able to pull that out. So talking about it, it's got name is tangible, it's solid.

00:09:19.840
And you know, the easy thing for her was that she was kind of already doing that. You know, it was something that she's always doing. So for her, it was about honing in on what that unique part was. But for a lot of people, it's not about honing in. For a lot of people, it's about engineering and actually starting to think outside of the box, because if you get really honest about your service, it doesn't mean that you're offering a worse service than anyone else.

00:09:42.820
It just means you're offering the same service as everybody else. And that's a dangerous place to be. If you offer the same service as everybody else, you leave yourself open to not dominating the market. You leave yourself open to not getting the sales that you want. And so it's really important that you start thinking outside of the box and start realizing that, you know, sometimes it might be that you're doing something different. If you are great, honed in on it, productize it and articulate it in a tangible way.

00:10:13.540
I know that can be a challenge. Itself, but you're at least halfway there with having something to articulate for so many. It's really important to actually start creating these these new ways of doing things. And again, I use every track on adventure travel company as an example. We realize that, yes, a lot of other other companies were absolutely booking people onto trips for what they weren't doing is helping people to actually achieve that goal in the run up to that trip.

00:10:42.220
So helping them prepare for it both mentally and physically to make sure that they actually achieve it, because we want these guys to stay customers and we also just have a genuine, genuine passion for them to achieve their goals. That's why we do what we do, because we want people to be able to push themselves beyond what their perceived limits are to show that they can achieve so much if they put their mind to it. And so that's important to us.

00:11:08.350
So it's an alignment with our purpose is and aligned with our mission. And it's also serving a market that is crying out to be shown and told how they can do it. And that, in turn, has gone out to a wider market of people who might be too scared to do it and have now have that kind of confidence to know where can we go with this company. We're going to feel fully prepared that we can do it. And I thought that that kind of backing in that confidence to know that it is achievable for me and that was really important to us as far as that runs through everything that we do is that preparation so that they can actually achieve that goal.

00:11:45.940
And yes, we put them onto that trip. Yes, we provide incredible trips and so on and so forth. But we have all of this other stuff in the interim that helps to to ensure that they do have the trip that they want. You know, you've put a lot of money and time and mental energy aside and physical energy aside to achieve this. And if they don't end up reaching that goal, it can be really disheartening. And it can be for very practical reasons as to why that didn't happen.

00:12:12.580
That could have been averted had they prepared better. So that's how we're serving our market in a different way. But it sounds city like we were doing some of that already, but we really did have to sit down and we had a meeting, all of us together, a whole team was like, what is it that we that we can do better? Because that's the thing. We were already doing elements of that already. And that is actually we go back to my honing in.

00:12:36.790
He was honing in on that and going, how can we make that bigger? So sometimes it is things that you were already doing, but a lot of the time it isn't enough. And a lot of the time it's about engineering. So we had like a glimmer. We had like an and that was glowing that we know we took and then blew a bit of oxygen to it. Productize didn't really blow it up to something that was a roaring success.

00:13:01.360
So sometimes there are hints and clues and breadcrumbs which are being left around in what you do that you can really look at and go, okay, so how do we make that thing? How can we productize that? You know, the way we productize that and the other track is looking at things like Planas. We've got a program that people can go through and video store online course that they can look through. We've got checklists. We got the you know, we've got we've got a community, we've got live communities that we have so that they can be feel fully prepared and ask all the questions that they need.

00:13:31.180
So we've got items and things that are tangible that they can actually use to help them achieve that goal. And that's the key here is, is that we need to start building assets around it. We need to productize that, need to put it out. We need to give it a name. Otherwise people will just go, OK, who's the cheapest and who wants to be who wants to be shopped around, decide who's the cheapest? We want people to buy from us because of our unique gift that our business has.

00:13:58.980
You know, that's what we want people to buy from us. So people buy from us because of X, Y and Z. They don't just buy from us because we're the cheapest or that we were the first to come across. Like, that's no price. That's no like something that's nothing to write home about. You know, let's up our game. Let's really look at accidents in business and actually start thinking bigger, start thinking more strategically and being more intelligent about our marketing.

00:14:26.260
Because when you can create and hone in on those things that make you stand out as a business, you are going to dominate your market much quicker. And I just want to put a caveat in here, because whenever I say the word dominate you, Mark, everyone's like, oh, God, she she's trying to crush her competition. No, I'm not never about that. What I am about is dominating a market based upon staying in my own lane, you know.

00:14:51.790
Yes, of course.

00:14:52.840
I want to help more, more people. I'm not about to start. I collect leads and go, OK, well, just to be fair, I'm going to hand it over to this person and this person so we can all share. You know, for me, that's not the case. You know, any business has to own their expertise. I know I'm great what I do. I know that I can change many lives on my businesses, can change many lives, and that to me is important.

00:15:22.370
And so, of course, I want to reach more people. It's part of my plan as part of a part of who I am. It's part of my business mission. You know, it runs through everything I do. And so, of course, I want to dominate the market cause I want to reach more and more people. The more people that I can reach and help, the better, because it really is fulfilling my mission. That doesn't mean I want to step on other people's toes or stand on people's heads, you know, stand on the shoulders of giants just to kind of reach where I want to go.

00:15:51.380
You know, I don't copy. I'm not about copying, which is unfortunately something that other people do to you when you start honing in on your genius. But they will always be sloppy seconds. And that's the other reason why you need to stop acting and acting upon these great ideas and why you continue to innovate those ideas in order to stay at the front of your game, in order to stay on top of top of mind. And, you know, if Netflix carried on posting videos through the post box, where would they be?

00:16:22.030
You've got to continue in innovating what you've got. And that's you know, this is not about stepping on other people's toes, but you have to step up, you know, if you want to if you want to take the expression, if you are the only competition, find great. We still need to be looking at our competition to actually find out, OK, what what aren't they doing that we can do? Not that what they do that we can do better necessarily.

00:16:49.000
What actually what aren't they doing? What aren't they serving or how can we take this one element that is being done OK and really make that powerful and take that, you know, make that the focus, not the reason as to why people buy from us. Other companies have their own agenda and they have their own thing that they want to do. They got to focus. They've got to stay in there. They are going to look at what they're doing and decide what they're USPI is, which, by the way, has to be different.

00:17:16.520
Otherwise, the EU and the US is kind of redundant, right? It has to be unique, but it also has to be of benefit to the market. So let's just let other people, the other businesses get on with what they're doing. You use yourself as a competition, but you've got to think strategically. You can't put blinkers on and just go, OK, well, I'm just going to go what everyone else is doing and carry on.

00:17:37.930
No, actually, do look at the competition. Do look at the industry as a whole. Look at the market, look at what they're crying out for and what do they want this that they're not being helped with.

00:17:46.930
What can you do that will help that thing, you know, help that that that need that gap that's not being fulfilled. And that's why, you know, A because you don't want to be compared as an apple to an apple. B, if you want to dominate your market and reach more people, it's absolutely crucial. And see, it's only going to help more people the more ingenuity that goes in to looking at a way to help your market in a different way to everyone else, the better that's going to be not only for your business, but for the people who you serve.

00:18:25.720
It's going to benefit benefit them. So those are the reasons why you need to know it for those exact reasons, because you compete along with that one. You can absolutely do that if you're happy, Peatling, and you're happy just making a bit of money and lapping up referrals and whatever else, there's no judgment, no shame whatsoever. If you're happy with that, then you can carry on and you don't need to. But if you're looking to really grow your business, if you're very ambitious and you're looking to reach more people, impacts more people, dominate markets, then then you just can't ignore it.

00:19:03.070
You have to have to look at it. It's so important.

00:19:07.600
What's really exciting is that over the coming couple of months, I'm going to be interviewing some of my amazing clients and talking to them about their concrete USP, which, you know, in the gen world is called a unique magic bullet. And so I'm going to be recording some episodes with some real life examples of productize up that they can really start talking about. Some of them are higher level. Some of them are more intricate. So some of them are, for instance, a more product related versus the higher level business.

00:19:45.800
You know, USPSTF, but that's the beauty is, is that once you get the hang of creating these solid, tangible USPSTF, you can create them in your business continually. You can have definitely have more than one. And you can stop productize being one particular USPI in many different ways to strengthen the court at the core and the key benefit. So I'm going to be pulling out some some some even even more amazing examples for you by interviewing some of my clients.

00:20:14.450
Over the coming months, which I'm really very excited about. So do do stay tuned on that. But if you're wondering how you can start to do it for yourself when you when you want to start getting a crack on that one inside of my brand new seven figure market leader roadmap, within that, I give you some amazing tips and access to a talk that I did on the expert unrivaled stage was in twenty nineteen where I go through exactly how different companies have productize us.

00:20:49.610
So if you would like access to that talk and the other items that go within it that do make sure that you download that for free using the link in the show notes.