In business it's important that you offer your clients something your competitors don’t. In this way, your advertising will stand a much better chance of being successful, because you will be seen as standing out from your competition.

To succeed in business you need to do things faster, better and be more efficient than your competition. You also need to make sure that you tell your prospects about this.

Your uniqueness is sometimes called your "Unique Selling Proposition (USP)”, or your “point of difference".

This point of difference is what you communicate in your advertising — and it is what will set you apart from your competitors.

Your point of difference needs to be something unique to you. If you adopt your competitors’ points of difference, you will not stand out from the crowd. So you need to find something that identifies your business and really sets you apart.

This way, your business will be seen as special by your customers and they will be eager to do business with you.

How do you differentiate your business from the others in the marketplace?

? You need to create a USP that is so appealing and distinctive that it sets you and your business apart from your competitors. It should be so powerful that your company will immediately spring to mind when a customer needs your type of product or service.

? Convey your USP in your marketing material, and combine it with your great business performance and your business will inevitably be successful.

Examples of some great USP’s

Many companies have improved their business substantially by developing a powerful USP. Some examples include:

Avis Rent-a-Car

For years Avis Rent-a-Car was behind Hertz in the marketplace. Hertz was a bigger company with a bigger fleet of cars. Avis did well, but it seemed no matter how hard they tried, they could not get the number one spot from Hertz.

So they came up with a USP, combined with good service, hard work and better rates, which enabled them to increase their market share. The USP they came up with was:

"We’re number two, we try harder"

Federal Express

You may have heard of their USP, which is:

"When it absolutely, positively has to be overnight — FedEx it!"

It’s a simple USP, but it works extremely well because it has the reassuring statement, “absolutely, positively”.

Dominos

When getting their USP together, Dominos knew that there were many other pizza places around and that there were not enough drivers in most of them. It was a known fact that on Friday and
Saturday night’s you can wait for up to an hour to get your pizza delivered, and by then, it’s usually soggy.

Dominos worked it out and used their USP to rectify the most basic problem of pizza delivery. They put in place some measures, so that they would follow through on their USP.

The simple, extremely effective USP they came up with was:

"We will deliver hot, juicy, delicious pizza to your door in 30 minutes or less, and if we don’t, you’ll get your pizza for FREE."

They did not want to lose money by giving away their pizzas, so they made sure that they stood by their USP. As a result, Dominos sales went up because of this simple USP and they increased their market share enormously.

What is unique about you and your service? Identify this and make your USP one that will make you stand out head and shoulders above your competition.

For more tips and information that will allow you to stand out above your competition just go to http://www.wordsthatsell.com.au


Shane Mills - Words that Sell

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