Since you started your small business no doubt every marketing lecture you’ve ever been party to will have urged you to “find your USP”. We’ve been taught to believe that identifying a Unique Selling Proposition – something that makes you stand out from your competitors – is essential for your business to thrive, and even to survive.
Whether your business is plumbing, hairdressing, an antiques shop, tea room or landscape gardening, you can forget success unless you can offer something others in the same line don’t. This is marketing 101, we’re told – but how important is it really to have a USP?
If you do have one, well and good – go for it and make the most of it in your advertising and social media. If not, you don’t necessarily have to knock yourself out trying to find one. USPs are … well … unique. So they’re notoriously hard to find, and you might keep searching frantically for that holy grail when you could be devoting your time and effort to alternative ways of strengthening your business.
In fact, some of these alternative ways may end up evolving into your USP, becoming the aspect that your product or service is renowned for, and why consumers will thus choose to do business with you rather than the competition.
Let’s take a look at some of the alternatives avenues on which you can expend your energy to enhance your business rather than chasing an elusive USP:
- Be Informed
One sure way to score points over the competition is to make sure you are well informed. Get to know your customers – their needs and expectations. You also need to keep abreast of developments in your industry as a whole and make it your business to spy out the immediate local competition. Be ready to exploit any opportunity to get ahead of your competitors, and to cater to the needs of your customers. Don’t be afraid to copy the successful ideas of others – just make sure you improve on them.
- Reputation
One of the most sure-fire ways of ensuring you attract and retain customers is by offering the best value around, and I don’t mean just monetary value. If you work hard to develop a reputation for being reliable, trustworthy, efficient, friendly and obliging this will work as well for your business as any USP. Be conscious all the time of the impression you are leaving behind when you interact with anyone, both in person, on the telephone and online. If you’re weak in any areas of customer service, face up to those weaknesses and make an effort to correct them.
- Specialise
If you’re in a highly competitive market (and most of us are nowadays), think about specialising in a particular aspect of your industry. This doesn’t mean that you don’t offer a full range of services, just that you pick one aspect and emphasize it in your marketing. For example, if you run a coffee shop develop a signature bake and push it out on social media, or if you have a hair salon think about specialising in colouring. What you do is not necessarily unique, but you can position yourself as an expert who does it better than anyone else.
- Positivity
There’s nothing more infectious and appealing than someone who is obviously excited and passionate about what they do. You can beat the competition simply by radiating a positive and enthusiastic attitude.
These are just some of the ways you can stand out from the crowd without having a USP. Instead, you’ll have a whole bunch of SPs, which when added together won’t be any the less worthy for not being unique.