How important is having a USP in your business right now

If a new customer contacted you and asked for your unique selling proposition, or USP, could you answer the question without having to think about it first? Customers are not actually likely to come out and ask you for your USP, but you USP is of great importance to them.

A USP is exactly what it sounds like. Your company’s unique selling proposition is whatever it is about your products and services that make your company unique to the competition.

Customers don’t usually come out and ask what is unique about your business. However, even though they may not know the term USP, prospective customers actively engage in evaluating service provider’s USPs whenever they through the process of researching options and selecting a service provider.

When customers are checking out your business, they are wondering, either consciously or subconsciously, whether or not they should do business with your organization or with one of your competitors. When a customer chooses to do business with your company, your USP was effective. Conversely, when a customer elects to purchase from your competitor instead of from you, your USP was ineffective.

If you can’t state your unique selling proposition, that means that you don’t know what it is that makes your business different from your competitors. If you can’t verbalize what it is that makes your business special, how can you possibly expect prospective customers to figure it out?

You cannot underestimate the importance of knowing your USP and communicating it to your customers. Whatever aspects of your business make it an obvious choice to your competitors should be, in essence, beaten into the heads of everyone who works for your company.

All of your marketing messages should be geared toward highlighting your USP. The product features and benefits that you communicate to your customers should be defined in terms of your USP.

Your company’s unique selling proposition should be both accurate and powerful. It must be phrased in terms of benefits to your customers. If the only thing that is unique about your business is that fact that you own it, you need to do a little work with tweaking what you have to offer. What unique benefit does your company offer customers that are specific to your organization?

Do you offer free shipping? Are your products the best value? Is your product quality higher than that of your competitors? Are you the company that listens to customers? Were you the first online provider of whatever it is that you provide? Does your product come with the most comprehensive warranty in the industry?

No one can tell you what your unique selling proposition should be. As the owner of your business, you should know better than anyone else what it is that separates your business from all the others.

One way to be sure that your perceptions of your USP are accurate is to ask your loyal customers what they think. Contact your long-term customers and ask them to share with you the two main reasons they do business with your company.

Look for consistency in the responses you get from your customers. When you hear customers saying similar things regarding the reasons they choose to do business with you, you will start to understand the importance of your USP. When you hear your customers verbalize the reasons they feel you are better than your competitors, there is no clearer definition of your unique selling proposition.