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"What's Your USP? - You've Gotta Have a Powerful USP To Set Yourself Apart..."By Rocky Tapscott The vast majority of Businesses have never seen their USP. What's a USP, I hear you ask? Well many Business advisers call it a Unique Selling Proposition, but Best selling author Robert Allen has changed it to mean something much more powerful. Your USP, according to Robert, means - U - Ultimate advantage - what is the ultimate advantage customers get from using your product or service? S - Sensational offer - Your offer really has to be great. After drowning under the weight of up to 3000 marketing messages every day, most people have just become desensitised to anything that looks like it is trying to sell them something. Your offer has to astound them and force itself into their consciousness immediately. P - Powerful promise - If you have convinced your customers that you have an ultimate advantage over your competitors and you have made them a sensational offer, then making a powerful promise that takes away the risk for them will usually guarantee the sale. A powerful promise is more than just a limp statement like 'satisfaction guaranteed'. It means 'powerful'; a promise that removes any doubt in the customers mind that you are taking all the risk in the transaction and they either love what you offer or it's not going to cost them a cent. Let's explore developing your USP further Firstly, what's your Ultimate Advantage? Big companies spend millions on developing and promoting the USP. Shouldn't you follow their lead (without spending millions, of course ;-) I bet you know the USP of these Companies - Volvo - of course, it's Safety BMW - the Ultimate Driving Machine Ipec - when it has to be there Overnight Mercedes Benz - means Outstanding Quality So, what is your Ultimate Advantage? Are you faster, more reliable, have friendlier staff, use more pure ingredients, cheapest in your field...what is your Ultimate Advantage? To determine your unique Ultimate Advantage if you aren't sure, think in terms of 'You Get' Say to your customer, "When you deal with us, You Get"...what? What makes you different to the thousands of other Businesses selling the exact same products and services as you? Do you get -
Your Ultimate Advantage has to differentiate you from everyone else. Imagine looking across the African plains and watching 10,000 flamingos standing together around a water hole. That's your Business in the eyes of your customer. Would you rather be like one of those flamingos or the hippo standing in the middle of the sea of pink birds? Your Ultimate Advantage has to make you stand out in the sea of other similar Businesses and let your customer know that if they want this benefit or product, you're the people to see. Then, promote your Ultimate Advantage in every piece of communication you do. On your Business cards, letterheads and stationary, your advertising and marketing campaigns, everywhere. You are different - point it out and make sure that your customers know it. What exactly is a Sensational Offer? A Sensational Offer is one where your reader or prospect sees your proposal as a 'No-Brainer...' Something that they would be foolish to pass up. Now most Businesses think that people only buy on price, and for some customers, this is true. But many more are looking for Value, they don't want to get ripped off, but they will happily pay a higher price if they perceive the value to also be much higher. So, let's have a look at some sensational offers. Ken Evoy at Sitesell makes a truly sensational offer with his Solo Build It! web Business building package. After giving you everything you need to create massive, measurable success online, then giving you hundreds of examples of other small Business people who are doing it including specific case studies, and with follow up through regular Newsletters and a dedicated and experienced support team, if you can't make a go of it online or it's just not for you, you get your money back! Not that too many people ask for it. Many people buy multiple SBI! websites when they realise the power that the system gives them in building free traffic from the search engines and them converting that traffic into dollars in the bank. If you haven't done so yet, take a few minutes to read through Ken's website and see what a sensational offer looks like for an online product. To visit the site and study how Ken does it, Click Here. Another sensational offer is made by Brian Winters of Push Button Publishing. Read through this website and feel the emotional triggers that make subscribing to his service if you want to publish information products, and the sensational offer at the end, almost irresistible. To visit Brian's website, Click here. That's fine I hear you say, but I'm selling stuff off-line, what can I do to make a sensational offer? What can you offer to increase the perceived value of your offer to make it irresistible? You could offer -
Take a good look at the bonuses offered on Brian's website and think of how you could offer something similar in your marketing. If you can get your customer's email address by telling them that you will send them their bonuses via email and let them know that you will be making regular discount offers as well, you have their permission to offer them products or services forever until they unsubscribe from your list. If you keep making Sensational Offers to your list of customers, they will stay with you and buy from you many, many times. Imagine sending an email to your list and within 24 hours banking loads of cash. With email marketing, it is very possible, and a website makes it easy to do this. The thing I like about a Solo Build It! website is that it removes the need to understand the technical side of things and lets you concentrate on building content and marketing instead. All you have to do is write the articles, collect the email names and make the offers. But you need to start collecting those email names and addresses now, before your competitors do... Then, build a relationship with your customers by offering great services and making sensational offers, and you should see a great improvement in your bottom line. Creating a Powerful Promise You've told your customers about your Ultimate Advantage, you've made a Sensational Offer and they're interested, but they still won't buy. What's going on here? The reason they won't sign up is that they still feel this thing called risk. They have been taken advantage of before...and it doesn't feel very nice. They took some sales persons advice and they were sold a lemon. They don't want to take the risk of that happening again. What can you do about that? You need to reverse the risk - you have to put all the risk on you. If you have done your job right earlier and sold your prospects on the benefits of owning what you offer and the consequences of not buying it, they should be seriously considering your proposal. Reversing the risk will push them over the line nearly every time. So, what do I mean by reversing the risk? I see so many Businesses with signs up saying something like, "Please choose carefully, as we do not exchange or refund simply because you changed your mind." Why would anyone say that? They have to be nuts! The risk to the buyer is horrendous! If they make a mistake, they are stuck with it no matter what. How many potential customers do you think might have purchased if they had the peace of mind that comes with a money back guarantee or the ability exchange the product. This is such short sighted thinking. The top marketers have reported a massive increase in sales with a minimal increase in returns simply by offering a money back guarantee on everything they sell. Of course, your product or service has to be good or you will be inundated with returns, but if your quality is not in question (and of course, it shouldn't be) then your profits should naturally increase if you are selling more. One of the masters of marketing, Jay Abraham, has taken this step of risk reversal even further by letting his customers try out or use his services, manuals or seminars for 30 days before being billed. Many other marketers are starting to do the same thing and recording sales increases of up to 400%. Of course, they have a 400% increase in returns as well, because the same percentage of people will still send the product back, but the huge increase in sales means that their profits are still much greater. How could you apply this to your Businesses? Take the time to study these two websites again and see how they reverse the risk, then work out how you can do the same. If these top marketers are using this technique, how can you benefit from it also? To visit Ken's website, Click Here. To visit Brian's website, Click Here. Study the psychological triggers they use. Take notice of the sensational offers they make, see how they take all of the risk. Then imitate their strategies. It works! I hope this article had given you something to think about. If you have any questions or comments, please send them to me by using the contact form. I will be happy to answer them for you if I can. Thankyou for reading this article. I hope it has been valuable for you. Kind Regards,
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