Ditch your USP
If you’re in the business of providing a service, you don’t need a Unique Selling Point (USP).
You’ve probably heard it a hundred times: “The first thing any business owner needs to do is get clear on their offer by establishing a USP.”
I disagree.
To be more successful and sell more, make this one change…
Forget about “selling.”
Your audience doesn’t want to be sold to. They’re interested in the value you have to offer them.
Your offer is valuable if it solves its intended pain points. And that’s what your audience wants to invest in.
*Pro Tip: use the term invest with purpose. In the spirit of value, ditch words like buy, cost, and purchase where possible, but don’t use the term invest as a sleazy marketing ploy (a.k.a to hide price points).
Your offer is valuable when you present it as an investment, not just another thing with a price tag attached.
It’s time to ditch your USP.
But don’t panic yet. We’re going to replace it.
What’s the purpose of USP
Your unique selling point is meant to highlight a feature or characteristic that distinguishes it from others of a similar nature and makes it more appealing.
But it’s tough to be truly original based on features alone, and your service-based business model probably goes way beyond a few “features” anyways.
Choosing a selling point may feel disingenuous in relation to your brand because sales has gotten a bad rap. It often conjures up images of a pushy car salesperson or sleazy door-to-door vacuum salesmen from the 1950s.
That’s not what you’re about and you want to make sure you communicate that to your audience.
Take the “S” out of the USP and turn it into a UVP.
Create a unique VALUE proposition
Sales become so much easier to approach if you think of it as finding ways to add value through interactions and conversations.
To get to the value, you need to ask if your offer is connecting your clients’ needs to a solution that will benefit their big problem.
You don’t want to try and create a need where it doesn’t exist just so you can plug your offer in.
That’s a dangerous game to play. You end up with dissatisfied clients because your offer didn’t provide any value.
That’s not to say that your offer isn’t valuable, it just didn’t align with the needs of the person you sold it to. They had a different problem, for which your solution was never the right solution.
When you eliminate the USP and create a UVP, you align your offer with a space for it on the market.
You aren’t trying to fit it into a market where it doesn’t belong because you aren’t trying to force sales.
Value vs. Selling
By providing value, you’re looking for ways to serve your client.
You’re deciding if your offer is the right fit for that person’s needs.
You’re looking for ways you can present a solution or create opportunities to support your audience’s desired outcomes.
Sometimes the value is in realizing your offer isn’t the right fit for that particular person, and investing the time to figure that out is never a waste.
You still provide value by recognizing this when you choose to part ways before time, money, and effort are exchanged.
Focus on value first and sales will follow naturally
The added bonus of a UVP is that even if you despise sales, you make it much more tolerable because now you’re “selling” value.
So how do you create your UVP?
You need to identify who your offer is for and what their main pain points are. Then list out the features of your offer that speak directly to those pain points. This is where we take that next step and go beyond simple features.
You determine the benefits that each of those features provides and how they provide a solution for the main pain points of your audience.
Decide (read: use market research to determine) which of those is the strongest benefit.
And that is the “V” in your UVP.
Now, you’re focusing on adding value to the lives of each of your potential clients. Doesn’t that sound so much easier than making sales?
Need help creating clear messages that convey your UVP? Let’s talk.
2 Comments
Jacob Roig
Great points brought out in this message Elle, it is a shift of focus for us when selling and we have to connect to the problem or pain. There are many others out there doing it and the sooner we do this, the faster someone gets curious or interested in finding out more and then eventually says, “That is exactly what I need!”
Thanks for sharing this
Elle
Well said! It’s all about connecting your offer to the value it will add to your client or customer’s life.
Thanks so much for your comment, Jacob!