Lessons

Lesson Info

Describe Your Unique Selling Proposition

Your unique selling proposition. In other words, it's the hook that you use to differentiate your product from the competition. It's the one thing you can say about your product that makes everybody get it. That makes them understand why they're gonna choose your product over a different product. Your service over a different service. Your program over a different program. That's your USP, your unique selling proposition, it's your hook. It's the thing that's going to help people get it, and make a decision about whether your product or a different product is right for them. But really what it comes down to is what you're really selling. 'Cause you're never just selling a course. You're never just selling coaching, you're never just selling consulting. You're never just selling an app. You're selling something that's an outcome, a result, a goal. It's a change that your customers can feel, it's a transformation that they value. So as we start to now take that market analysis and look a...

t opportunities for selling, we're also gonna look at how what you're really selling is different from what other people are really selling. We do that by starting to ask ourselves, "What do the other brands in our market say they sell? "What do the other brands say they sell?" Like I said, it's not just about, oh they sell socks. They don't just sell socks, they're selling something else; socks are the tool for it, just like your tool is an ax, for this class' purposes. Socks are the tool in the sock market and the brands that sell in the sock market are selling something else, so let's take a look. Let's take a little more close look. Hanes is selling a legacy. I said it was a legacy brand before, and so right on their website, it says "America's first name in comfort since 1901." That's over a hundred years of socks. That's a legacy. It's almost ubiquitousness, right? That's what Hanes is really selling. They're selling something you can depend on. They're selling something you trust. When you buy a pair of Hanes socks, you're buying that kind of history, you're buying that kind of dependability. That's what works for Hanes, that's part of their unique selling proposition. Actually, it's not part of it, it's the whole shebang. Now let's look at SmartWool. As I mentioned before SmartWool really gears their product to kind of the outdoor enthusiast, and so, well one, I don't recommend putting white letters over very blown out trees in your hero image. But this was as good as I could do, I'm sorry. But what you see here is a dude who is an outdoor enthusiast. This dude is a professional; in fact he's iconic alpinist Conrad Anker. I don't know what that means. But I know that I want to work in that direction. If I'm an outdoor enthusiast, as I'm trying to become. That is a dude that looks like a role model. He's a guy that I can learn something from. So what they're selling here is that, it is that drive to become the better hiker, the faster climber, the person who is outdoors all the time and loving it. It's the person who wants the outdoors to be their life. That's what SmartWool is really selling there. They're selling the image of this guy, and your potential to become like him with socks, okay? That's what they're really selling, that's their unique selling proposition. Then we go to Nike. Nike didn't have a lot of great visuals for this, but the most important thing on this page is this line of socks that's called Nike Elite. Elite socks, who needs elite socks? I don't know, someone who wants to be an elite athlete. A performance athlete, someone who is working harder every single day to become a better athlete, to become a better basketball player, a better runner, a better tennis player. Whatever sport of your choice, what they're really selling is elite. When you put on a pair of Nike socks, they want you to think you're gonna be a faster runner. You're gonna make more baskets. You're gonna get more volleys, whatever it might be. That's what Nike's really selling. Your better performance on the court, on the field, on the road. And then finally, what's Bombas really selling? Bombas is selling comfort evolved. It says here, "We spent two years on research "and development to engineer the perfect sock." They're selling engineering, they're selling science. They're selling comfort evolved. The next generation of comfortable socks, it's completely different than America's first name in comfort since 1901. That's their unique selling proposition. It works for them, just like America's first name in comfort works for Hanes. All four of these unique selling propositions, all four of these stories work for each of these brands. And they're all completely different, and I could've picked six more sock brands and told you six more completely different stories, but you'd be bored out of your mind. So we'll move on from this soon, but I just want you to see, there's a story you can tell about your core offer that's different than every other story that's being told in your market. So the first thing you need to do is ask yourself, as you're looking at that market analysis, "What are the different stories, "What are the different hooks behind each of these brands?" What are the different hooks, the different stories behind each of these brands? Once you know what their hooks are, what their stories are, you can start to develop yours. Then as you do that, look back through your market analysis and ask yourself how that story, that hook, that unique selling proposition actually lines up with the rest of the analysis. The price point they're selling at, the style of their product, the availability in the market. The brand. Did I miss anything? The customer. (chuckles) How does that story line up with all those other pieces that you've analyzed about those brands? Because what you want is to make sure that your unique selling proposition, the hook behind your core offer, is aligned with each of the other pieces of that offer; it's price, the customer that you're targeting, how you're selling it, the availability of it, the style behind it. The way you're delivering that product, you want all of that stuff to be working together. The more it works together, the stronger your unique selling proposition, the stronger your brand, and the easier it is for you to stand out in your market. The key to standing out in your market is not taking the Facebook algorithm, figuring out exactly how it works and coming up with a perfect formula of social media posts. That is not gonna work. It's not even figuring out how to do the perfect Facebook ad campaign. You can't pay to get this stuff figured out. You can't pay someone to stand out in a market. You have to get this stuff figured out first. You have to make sure that your unique selling proposition, your core offer, its availability, its price tag, the customer that you're appealing to, that all of that stuff is working together to tell a story that's different from the stories that other people are telling. Questions? Yeah, Alaya. It was interesting, when I started doing it I felt like I was mostly competing with myself, because my three offers are very different so I was like wait, I'm just writing the three things I offer down here? Would it kind of be, I offer business systems consulting, I offer a course that helps people with their systems. So what I've written down as a potential competitor is, someone else who has a systems program, coaching and then a VA, would those be good things to kind of evaluate? Yeah, I think those are good. I would actually even add Asana or Trello, like an app. The software is a service essentially, project management tools, systems management tools that are out there as a brand that you want to analyze as well. Just because since your market and my market are very overlapping, I know people sign up for those things thinking this is going to solve all my problems, right? If only I could just use Asana everyday I'll never drop the ball again. Well, it doesn't really work that way, but people are thinking along those lines, and that actually brings up a great point, because that competitive analysis, the market analysis, the other brands that you're looking at, it's not just what you think your competitors are. It's what your customer thinks the competitors are. It's all the things they're considering, not all the things you're considering to solve the question, fill the need, meet the goal. Makes sense, okay. Okay? Cool. And so what your USP really comes down to is a very simple formula. I love formulas. I love giving you a template that you can use to make this really easy. And it's simply we sell, blank. But what we really offer is, blank. We sell, blank. But what we really offer, is blank. And when you can finish that statement, you can create a core offer that's completely aligned price to customer to style to availability to brand, you can tell a story that is 100% on point, so that when people see your brand, see your product, hear you speak, they get it immediately. Which is pretty cool, right? Okay, 'cause that's something we all need I think, yeah? Okay. So let's look at some examples here. Bombas USP is something like, "We sell socks, but what we really offer "is cutting edge comfort." We sell socks, but what we really offer is cutting edge comfort. In lesson one we looked at Airstory, the software product that allows content marketers and copywriters and marketing teams to collaborate with ease using templates and document tools that help them do that, and so Airstory might say, "We sell writing software, "but what we really offer is an easier way "to collaborate on your projects." We sell writing software, but what we really offer is an easier way to collaborate on your projects. So if that's the story they're going to tell, what's the price point for that? What's the customer for that? What's the brand need to look like behind that? How do they need to make that product available? How do they need to talk about it? What's the story that they're really telling? We sell writing software, but what we really offer is an easier way to collaborate on your projects. What kinds of different product development decisions are they gonna make? What features are they going to choose to include first, or before other features? If you know this story, you can create a completely aligned offer. So that people get it immediately. At CoCommercial, we sell a small business social network, but what we really offer is unprecedented access to people who have been there, done that. We sell a small business social network, but what we really offer is unprecedented access to people who have been there, done that. So what we sell is, but what we really offer is this other thing, okay?