Episode #256: Revising Our Unique Selling Proposition

You would think that if your business has survived Covid, then the pandemic will have cut a swathe through your competitors. Therefore, we would all be granted a temporary reprieve from the usual rigorous competition for client business. Counterintuitively, there seems to be more and more competition for the same clients, so we need to differentiate ourselves very clearly. What we absolutely don’t want is for the buyer to think they can just swap another company’s solution in to replace us, like a modular part in the modern car engine.

We need our Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) to be crisp and sharp to make sure the buyer knows we are different and better than the competition. We need to point out what we are offering, that they are not. However with all of this focus on bare bones survival have we looked at our USPs lately? Are they a bit dusty and the sheen gone off from lack of attention?

Some things to think about when crafting our Unique Selling Proposition is to look at things from the buyer’s perspective. This seems completely obvious but often we are operating in our own little bubble and we see the world through the limited prism of our own value system.

It is no help talking about what we sell in our USP. That is tremendously interesting to us, but not as important as what is of interest to the buyer. Do we really know what they are interested in now? Have their interests shifted since Covid shook up the business world? What are they trying to buy today? What new problems do they need help solving? In today’s commercial environment where do they need to receive more value?

Let’s use Dale Carnegie as the example. We may think we sell sales training. However, what company buyers want is to receive greater per head sales revenue outcomes from their salespeople. In fact, we need to sell outcomes and our training services are the tool to achieve that.

Let’s see some examples of our USPs.

1. Dale Carnegie Training has been in operation since 1912.

We think that is terrific and important, but the client doesn’t care about that. In Japan, in particular, what they do care about is risk reduction. We need to emphasise that our track record of 109 years provides the Japanese buyer with the sense that our company has a solid track record, so therefore, we are more trustworthy as a result. “Nobody gets fired for buying IBM” was a fantastic ad tag line in the 1970s and this is the real USP for us not the 109 years. If you have longevity as a business in Japan, what is your real USP in your case?

2. We teach 90% of the Fortune 500 companies.

Again, “so what” from the buyer’s point of view. The essence of the USP is that these Fortune 500 companies are the richest and most powerful companies and they can choose whoever they want to provide training services. The fact that they choose Dale Carnegie is an indication that the biggest organisations have done their due diligence and like what we do, so we are a safe choice. Remember, nobody wants to be first to try something in Japan, so this precedent idea is a winner here. Can you marshal your biggest clients as proof that there is a safe precedent to buy from you?

3. We have offices in 100 countries.

This is another “so what” potential reaction from clients. We need to point out that because of our global network, we can deliver training wherever the client is located. Further, we can do it in the language and cultural context of that society, ensuring the best reception of the training content. Do you have global capacity, so that buyers can have a global one-stop shop solution when using you? How are you framing your USP around this point?

4. Our trainers are required to complete 250 hours of train-the-trainer content before they can be certified by Dale Carnegie and be allowed to instruct.

The point is to mention that this whole process takes about a year and a half and only the most motivated and dedicated people are willing to put themselves through this rigorous process. This is why we can claim our trainers are the “best of the best”. The hours are not the key – the selection process is the key.

What processes do you have in place to assure the client that the people serving them are extremely well selected and well trained. You may be doing both right now, but not thinking to mention it to the client as a USP differentiator in the market.

The point of the USPs is to differentiate what we are doing from our competitors and give the client the comfort that they are making a wise decision in choosing us to provide the solution to their problems. Have your USPs changed since Covid started? Are they polished, shiny and sparkling, ready to impress the buyer? It is time to revisit and rework them as we move glacially toward a post-Covid business world.