👨‍🎓 SIBG Pt. 1.2 - How to define your value proposition, aka USP

Trainings >> Stages and Ingredients of Business Growth >> 1.2 How to define your USP

You can go long and deep on what a Unique Selling Proposition is, but in the end it's really simple - and pretty damn important too.

Your USP is nothing more or less, than the answer to:

Why you, why now?

What makes someone want to buy from you, and not from somebody else?

And: what makes that person want to buy now, instead of sometime later?

Put differently:

What, actually, gives you the pre-eminent preferential positioning that makes your coaching or consulting the best choice for your ideal buyer?

What is it about your work, method, process, IP, promise, results, that has a buyer go "You. Not anybody else, but you"?

The answer to that question is so fundamentally crucial to your business success, it's a crying shame it doesn't get more attention. 

At best, people try to concoct their own definition of their USP.

"I'm the best choice because..." and then you fill in some words that you feel distinguish you from others. 

The problem with that is that while those qualifiers might indeed set you apart, there's a real - and very big - chance that it's not the reasons your buyer considers you as distinguished and pre-eminent and the only right choice.

And whatever you may think, it's what the buyer thinks that actually matters. 

I mean, they're the ones who vote with their money, right?

So, the only way to figure out what your USP actually is, is to talk to your buyers and let them tell you. 

And it's real easy too: 

All you need to do, is line up a bunch of conversations - 25 is usually enough - and ask a few simple questions:

• "Why did you choose me (or us) over other providers?"

• "What made it a 'now-decision', what about our approach had you decide to act now instead of later?"

• "If you were to recommend us to a friend, what would you tell them?"

There's a bunch more you can ask and learn, but with just this small set, and 25 conversations, I promise you'll have truly eye-opening insights into why people actually chose you - not the reasons you think they had for doing so. 

And the beauty and power of doing this kind of research, is that you don't just end up with the reasons why people choose you:

You are also given the actual wording that your buyers use - you get to learn what is the 'conversation going on in the buyer's mind'. 

And that's so powerful, it's not even funny. 

Because once you learn from your ideal clients how they think - and talk - about you and about the problems they have, you can use that same messaging in order to engage with new leads.

Thus, you create a beautiful little filter, in order to attract, and converse with, just those buyers who are ideal, and who - because you picked up wording and messaging from people just like them - automatically consider you the best option. 

So then, do you need to do this research?

You tell me. 

If you find that you have enough sales opportunities, but your conversion rate is too low, and, if you don't have a USP, or you cooked one up with your own best guess, then that's probably a major reason why not enough people buy, because a bad or lacking USP gets you in front of the wrong people, and/or with the wrong message.

But now you know how to solve that: 

Interview your clients, let them tell you why they bought. 

Bonus: 

In many cases, you'll find that engaging with past buyers this way, reveals new opportunities for new sales. 

So yeah, talk to people. Fun to be had. Money too, probably.

And to make the money more likely to show up, let's look at 🧑‍🎓 your Goto Market Strategy.