What Makes You Unique? What Makes Your Product or Service Special? What’s Your Unique Selling Proposition or USP?

Interested in cranking things up a notch or two (or ten!) and taking things to the next income level? Want to make a huge difference in the lives of others?

Do you need generate more business or sales to help reach these goals?

If your answer is yes to the above questions, then I strongly suggest you focus a great deal of your time and attention to the following…

Aggressively share with the world your unique selling proposition or USP!

Several examples of rather well known USP’s include:

Domino’s Pizza: “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less — or it’s free”

FedEx: “When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight”

M&M’s: “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand”

Every day you’re exposed to USPs. Some are good and immediately get you to start thinking about a particular company or service. Other USPs are so bad that you’ve forgotten all about them after 5-10 minutes.

So what exactly is a good USP? Well, an effective USP explains and satisfies the following criteria…

1. What the benefit is
2. What the specific message is (clear, concise and to the point)
3. Is easy to understand, is realistic, and easy to remember

The idea is to create a USP that can and will be the marketing foundation to your business. It is a persuasive and memorable message that everything else will be built around.

In fact, a well crafted USPs can be based on price, product or type of service. You can also focus an effective USP on color, size, location, business hours or almost anything else you can think of.

Because of this, you need to be able to clearly state your USP. It needs to be easy to for consumers to identify with. Your long-term marketing plan will be to develop and promote your USP so that it will bring YOUR company, product or service to the center of attention when it is mentioned or heard.

It’s important to keep in mind that USPs can and will change over time. Market conditions, technology and consumer perception can and will require you to make changes over the lifetime of your product or service.

OK. Now that we’re clear about what a USP is, the next logical questions for most of us is…

“How do I create a good USP?”

Before I answer this question, it’s important for you to first figure out what is truly unique about you or your business. What do you do better than anyone else? What makes you better or different that anyone else who does what you do or who sells a product or service similar to you?

Think hard and think outside the box. We’re all different and we all bring our own uniqueness in to this crazy and exciting world. What’s yours?

Now, keeping in mind what makes you different, review the following 8 steps. It make take an hour, a day, or even a week to complete the following task. Just make sure you focus and get it done. Your success may depend on it.

1. Realistic and Doable: First, keep in mind that you need to be able to fulfill the promise placed in any USP you develop and use. Remember this simple but important detail. This single fact is critical to your long term success. After all, if you can’t walk the talk, your chance of long-term success is zero.

Ask yourself, “Can I really do this?”

2. Understand Your Target Audience: Before you can develop and use your USP, you first need to understand, with crystal clarity, who you will be marketing to.

Who are your clients? Who would you like to have as clients or customers?

3. What’s the Problem You Can Solve?: How can you help a client or customer with their problem or needs? How can your business help benefit someone experiencing this particular problem?

What are my clients’ problems and how can I solve them?

4. Distinctive Benefits: Make a list of 3-5 benefits that only you can offer your customer or client. These five benefits should be specific and describe what sets you apart from your competition. Your USP must be focused on the benefits your product or service provides to your customers. A feature might be a new state-of-the-art medical device your practice is using to treat patients. A benefit is that your patients will no longer experience lower back pain. Benefits are the ONLY thing clients and customers are truly interested in for the long haul.

What benefits are my clients looking for? What benefits can I offer that my clients may not even be aware of?

5. Describe and Write Down Your Promise: A good USP makes an implied or express pledge to your customers or clients. What is it? Make sure you can write it down in a single sentence.

6. Write a Paragraph: Take steps 1-5 and combine the info. Write it all down in a nice long paragraph. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar. Just start writing and creating your USP based upon the indicated steps.

7. Rewrite: Review and rewrite your paragraph 2-3 times eliminating duplicate thoughts and merging similar statements. Your final paragraph should an easy to read paragraph.

8. Single Sentence: Now rewrite your paragraph in to a single sentence. Be specific and remember to prominently include the benefit to your customer shared in a specific message that is realistic and easy to understand and also easy to remember.

Keep working on this last step for at least a couple of days. Use your early morning creative mind to give you clarity and good perspective. Continue to fine tune your USP sentence until it is perfect in your mind and looks good on paper. Share your work with others and get constructive feedback.
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Summary: The fact of the matter is that this process isn’t easy but it is essential to the success of your business. Businesses lacking a good USP simply get by and rarely achieve great success. In fact, most have a high failure rate and are doomed for a lifetime of mediocrity.

Use your USP in every marketing message that leaves your office. Incorporate your USP in to your answer to the question, “So, what do you do for a living?” Teach everyone at your office to do the same.

Successful companies prominently display their USP on their marketing material and on their web sites, blogs, and social media networks. They put energy and time in to educating potential clients and customers with the answers to these questions.

Generate more business and increase profits by using an effective USP. Make it easy for others to share your business by educating them about the benefits you offer. Use a clear, concise and easy to remember USP to take things to the next level.

When you’re finished, I’d love to see your USP. Email it over. Need help, feel free to bounce ideas off of me. I’m standing by to hear from you!

So, what’s your USP?
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“Remember to make today your masterpiece and to remind your family and friends to do the same!”

Jon Mitchell “Mitch” Jackson, Esq.
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New World Lawyer- “A Better Way to Practice Law”

2009 Orange County California Trial Lawyer of the Year (Wrongful Death Case) enjoys sharing more than 25 years of successful insider tips, tools, and approaches about how to use relationships, the internet, and social media to build your practice and enjoy your life!

Orange County personal injury lawyer, Jon Mitchell Jackson, was named an Orange County Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Orange County Trial Lawyers Association. Mitch is the founding partner and Senior Litigation Partner of Jackson and Wilson, Inc., a top AV rated firm by Martindale-Hubbell. The firm is also listed in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers, an exclusive listing reserved for the best law firms in the United States. This recent award follows several earlier recognitions this year naming Mitch as a Southern California Super Lawyer and, a rating of 10.0 or Superb by the national AVVO lawyer rating system. Mitch also serves as a Judge Pro Tem with the Orange County Superior Court and in his spare time, enjoys Rotary Internat

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