What's your unique selling proposition?

Creating a USP is possibly the most important thing you can do for your business

What do you mean you don't have one?

With a USP you make your business stand out from the crowd. Customers will be easier to come by. Happy customers will gladly spread the word about what you do because they love you.

On the other hand, if you don’t have an effective USP, building an audience or getting any customers to pay attention to you will be a really tough.

Your USP can mean the difference between success and failure

It's not about being the best - Having a great product, creating amazing content or offering first class customer service on its own is not enough to make your business stand out, especially if you're a small business competing in an ever crowded market with lots of big boys.

So don't compete at all, instead be the best at something no one else is doing and your unique selling proposition is the starting point.

How to come up with your USP

If your business is built around you then use your personality. By stamping your personality on all aspects of your business you create something that no one can compete with, after all, there's only one of you.

Define your niche - When you say you're all things to all men (or women) you end up being nothing to everyone. Compare these two statements:

• I'm a business coach who works with anyone who wants to increase their sales
• I'm a business coach who helps women create a new home-based business after having had children

I've met both types of coaches at network meetings and I may know many businesses who want to increase their sales, but I find it so much easier to recommend clients to the second coach. Defining your niche helps others recommend you.

When you work in a competitive market it helps to narrow your target audience.  Me, I work in video production and there are lots of video production companies out there. Am I interested in competing with them? Hell no. I'm interested in creating my own niche and working with a narrow target audience. So this is what I say about what I do:

Helping coaches and trainers who struggle to communicate their expertise, create authentic video content that establishes them as the "go to person" in their field

Lets break down my USP:

Helping coaches and trainers - straight away you know who my target market is... coaches and trainers!

who struggle to communicate their expertise - narrowing my offering, I work with coaches and trainers who have a problem, they struggle to communicate the expertise... That suggests I offer a solution to their difficulty.

create authentic video content - ah, here you go, here's the video production bit, but it's not just any sort of video, it's authentic video which resonates with the way many of my clients want to work.

that establishes them as the "go to expert" in their field - here's the benefit of working with me...

In one simple sentence you get who I work with, what the problem is I help them with, how I do it and the benefit I give. It wasn't simple to come up with that sentence, but it was worth the time taken in creating it.

Having a USP doesn't restrict your business

Even though I say I work with coaches and trainers, that doesn't mean I don't work with other business owners. In fact I get many business owners who aren't coaches or trainers contact me who connect with the "struggle to communicate their expertise" or want to make "authentic videos" who are a real joy to work with.

The clarity in my USP offering makes it so much easier for others to recommend me and to build a following.