Unique Selling Proposition

A question that comes around every so often for us is how do you promote a company who has a product or service that is the same as everyone else in the marketplace?  The answer is you really can't.  Sure you can spend money on advertising to keep leads coming in and you will be able to close some of those.

The issue though is if your product can not be differentiated from the competition you are going to have to fight that much harder for the sales.  Additionally many time you will spend quite a bit of time with a potential client only to have them go window shopping and buy from a competitor at something that seemed so trivial.

You must realize that people generally love shopping and buying things.  When you buy anything big such as a vehicle, a house, or a large screen television you are happy about it.  You tell everyone you know about it and you tell them with a smile on your face.  However when you flip it around and instead of buying, if you are in a situation when someone is trying to sell you on something you can't stand it.  People don't like being sold to, but they like to buy.

So, what you need to do is give that potential buyer all the reasons to buy from you instead of the next guy.  Figuring this out seems harder then it really is though.  The easiest way to determine what is unique about your offering is to ask your existing client base why they chose to go with you.  What they say may be quite enlightening because you didn't even think of it before hand.  If you are at the preventure stage of your business and do not have any customers yet you can still research this by doing the same basic survey, but instead of asking existing customers go out and ask the people who you think will be buying your offering.

Once you have determined your unique selling proposition, or even better you have determined multiple ones, your work is not done yet.  Now you must make sure that you use this in your marketing material and shout it from the roof!  If you are the only one to know what makes your service better then the guy down the street then it will still not do you any good.

One last thing to keep in mind too is that what makes your offering better may not always be true.  When your competitors realize why you are better then them you can bet they are going to be quite aggressive in duplicating your advantage and working to one-up you.  The only way to keep up is to keep improving and fighting back by one-upping them.  As the adage goes much like an escalator if you are not moving up, then you are moving down.