There are three reasons why your business needs an ‘Utterly Seductive Proposal’:
1. To make your business stand out and be remembered
2. To make your clients an offer they can’t refuse
3. To get people talking about you
1. Stand out & be remembered
What is more important in business than your ability to attract attention and maintain relationships? Not a lot! You’re in business to stand out and not blend in. If no one knows you exist how can they buy from you? Of course you want to make a profit and build a sustainable organisation. But EVERYTHING goes right back to your ability to be seen and to be remembered…and I believe the common denominator to doing that is being distinctive in a highly positive way to your market.
Receiving new sales enquiries and keeping buyers coming back for more [i.e. generating revenue] are the only things that are going to make your business successful and allow you to survive. Anything else you can possibly think of to counter that statement will slot in neatly underneath those two points and become supporting and contributing factors. What are you doing that your competition are not in a way that makes you highly distinctive?
Here are 9 USP ideas you can think about to begin to build your Utterly Seductive Proposal around. Look for your own exceptional qualities in these areas:
1. Innovation
2. A pioneering method, process or system
3. Guarantees
4. Individuality
5. Speed
6. Technical superiority
7. Zero risk
8. A promise
9. Exclusivity
….or anything else you wish to be known for. Can you see any existing opportunities in that list for you to start to build your very own unique core differentiator right now? Make some notes right now if you can. It’s a start.
This is where you need to be aiming to make your business’s products and services the topics of conversations at cocktail parties and business networking events.
2. Make your clients an offer they can’t refuse
So what are you doing to make your ideal target client an offer he, or she, can’t refuse? What makes you the go-to business in your sector?
The most common answer is that you are passionate about what you do. The next thing many say is they also give great service. “It’s me God damn it, it’s me. I’m unique and amazing. They are buying me!” To be frank, passion and great service are pathetic answers.
This just says you haven’t thought it through. Who of your competitors, do you think, is NOT going to be saying exactly the same predictable and humdrum thing? That’s the weakest response you, or anyone, could ever give. But it’s also the most common so, “You’re Not Alone,” in thinking that as Olive would have said in the 1996 dance club anthem.
Owning a powerful Utterly Seductive Proposal [USP] goes way beyond good service and enthusiasm for the job. You’d expect that from anyone who is in business. What you wouldn’t expect is an offer so powerful, and backed by rock solid risk-reversal guarantees, you’d actually want the transaction to backfire so you were rewarded with the promises the company made.
Example – Buy a TV from Timtronix & Co. and if it’s isn’t the perfect TV for you return it to us within 7-days for a free trip for 4 to Barbados!
Now, if I bought that TV I’d be hoping the TV broke down, malfunctioned and didn’t do what it was supposed to do. Or the stand was wrong, or anything so I could take it back and claim the guarantee offer. Worst case scenario, the TV is perfect and I got what I originally wanted. However you look at it, if I am looking to buy a TV I’d be a total lunatic for not buying from Timtronix & Co. I simply can’t lose. It’s an offer I can’t refuse.
3. Let’s get people talking about you
I genuinely believe business all comes down to making yourself highly discussable. If you make it easy for people to talk about you, you have done everything right. It means you’re naturally being recommended and frequently being referred. To make yourself easy to talk about a lot of things have to be in place, like making yourself easy to remember. That comes from being distinctive and being distinctive comes from making yourself unique.
Creating a unique standpoint takes thought and hard work, but it’s worth it and until you have a position of differentiation I don’t believe you should be saying anything to anyone about your business. It’s a total waste of time as all you’re doing is underlining your mediocrity.
Question – name a British businessman. Most would say Richard Branson. What’s he done that Peter Jones and Alan Sugar have not? Well, quite a lot actually. If he’s not flying an airship over the London Eye with an enormous livery saying, “BA cant’ get it up,” to breaking the Blue Riband Atlantic crossing record in 1986 in Challenger II [after the first one sank in 1984] he’s trying to get into the news to promote the Virgin brand anyway he can. 10 other brilliant Branson publicity stunts can be seen here.
The difference is obvious, Branson does what others don’t think of doing …or wouldn’t even dare to do. He takes risks and goes places others might only stumble upon in their dreams on night [and we all forget most of our dreams]. He absolutely defines thinking outside the box. Writing this article actually wants to make me go and buy one his books.
Unusual and ground breaking activities, like the above, make an extremely strong case for word of mouth marketing being by far and away the strongest form of marketing. Branson makes international news…talk about free publicity on the highest level. Ok, it does cost him to stage these stunts, but the exposure he receives makes his ROI massive and he takes the long-term view. The longer time the ROI is measured against the higher it will be.
The best form of marketing is surely not TV advertising any more, with all of us watching recorded programs compared to live TV a few years ago. Having to go back to suffering patronising and brand building adverts from large organisations, who can often throw enough money at a product where a USP isn’t so important, is a painful thought [think banks, lager and shampoo adverts – my blood pressure is rising at the mere thought!].
Making waves
For you and I, as small businesses owners, we obviously don’t have the luxury of a £5,000,000 budget to launch our new service. We need to make a splash for other reasons. This isn’t exactly difficult when you take a look at your rivals in most cases.
Imagine your prospects and customers are lying asleep in the sun on a beach and you are standing in the water up to your waste with a surf board [go on, try it]. You want to be wafting that surf board around so heavily [like making waves in the bath with the palms of your hands] it sends waves so far up that beach everyone has to wake up, sit up, stand up and move their towels back. They have to react to what you’re doing …or they get wet. [Is this an appropriate point to mention the towel etiquette of the average German on holiday? Well ok, if that’s what it takes for you to make such good cars, I’ll give you my sun bed under any circumstances ok?]
So there were the three reasons why I believe your business needs an Utterly Seductive Proposal:
1. To make your business stand out and be remembered
2. To make your clients an offer they can’t refuse
3. To get people talking about you
What next?
Click here to work out your very own Utterly Seductive Proposal.
If you’re really really really serious about blowing your competition away then get my book on this very subject here.
If you’d like a place on my email list and receive a couple of ideas or articles a month from, like this, or if you ever need any second opinions on what you’re doing in this area I am more than happy to hear from you. Talk to me here here.
That’s all for now folks, no more links. Thanks very much for reading.
Tim Coe
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