Is Your Business Really Different? “No one else does what I do; my business is unique.”
This is what I hear all the time from businesses that are struggling to grow. They are convinced that they don’t have any competitors and that no one does exactly what they do. This means that they don’t worry too much about getting their marketing right – they are so unique that they think they don’t have to!
If this is you, then you are REALLY lucky. However, if you’re a coach, a consultant or a trainer, then I would be prepared to put money on the fact that you are not alone and that someone, somewhere, is running a similar business to you.
I’m up for a challenge, so if you think that you can win this bet, please get in touch!
Over the past 20 years of running my marketing business I have met literally hundreds of coaches, consultants and trainers. I have over 1500 readers of Scribbles, my email newsletter and there are about the same number of people on my database. I have over 1000 connections on LinkedIn. While I haven’t met all these people and while there is some overlap, this shows that I actually know thousands of coaches, consultants and trainers.
This means that somebody, somewhere is competing with you!
This is why it is so important that you stand out from the crowd; you need to show your potential clients what makes you different and why they should work with you, instead of spending their money somewhere else.
What Makes You Really Different?
When you provide a service to your clients, rather than selling products, you shouldn’t try to compete on price. Why not? Because you’ll just end up cutting your prices, decreasing the value you provide to your clients and not earning any money! You can’t compete on features either, because your service can’t be seen and compared to others. Telling a prospect that you are faster at delivery or that your customer service is better doesn’t really cut it, as it’s difficult to prove either of these.
Think instead about why people buy from you – not the rational ‘I need it’ reasons, but the irrational ‘I want it/I want to work with this person’ reasons. Once you get to grips with emotional USPs (Unique Selling Points) then you can really show off what makes your business different.
What is an Emotional USP?
There are six human emotional needs first articulated by Tony Robbins. These have been further developed into a structure for formulating the emotional USP for your business. They help you to establish and articulate the key reason why people will buy from you – the wants rather than the needs.
Here are the six emotional needs and how they translate into business USPs driven by emotion:
- Certainty – someone will buy from you because they know you’ll get the job done. You provide security and consistency.
- Contribution – they will buy from you because they know you’ll help them make a significant contribution through their business or their life.
- Connection – they’ll buy because they know that you can connect them with the people they need to know.
- Growth – someone will buy from you because they know you’ll help them or their business to grow. They want continual personal or business development.
- Significance – they’ll buy because they know you’ll help them to feel valued. They want to feel important and needed.
- Variety – they will buy because they know you’ll bring them the variety they want. They prefer uncertainty over certainty.
In my business, my emotional USP is Certainty. My clients work with me because they know I’ll give them the advice they need, that will bring them new clients. They know that they don’t have to wade through all the marketing activities that are available – that I will just show them the best tactics to use. I use this in my marketing messages, to tell prospective clients that they can trust me to give them straightforward advice and to work with them to find new clients.
‘Certainty’ is not sexy or exciting, but when you understand that you’re known as a ‘safe pair of hands’ or a trusted adviser by your favourite clients, when you promote your business with those terms, guess what? You get more of the types of clients that you really want to work with!
When I understood this, I changed the way that I was promoting Appletree and it attracts my ideal clients to ask for my help with their marketing.
What is your emotional USP? Take some time to identify your emotional USP and then use the most appropriate language in your marketing to make your business really stand out.
