Top 7 Ways To Design Your USP

(The Unique Selling Proposition)
by Christopher M. Knight

1- Your USP must be one sentence.

2- Every person on your team needs to be able to articulate it easily.

3- Your USP is either Pain (-) or Pleasure (+) oriented. Since most people will do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure, you might want to model your USP around the pain that your product or service removes.

4- Make sure your marketing theme, campaigns, and business plans evolve around your USP. Did you ever see a business who’s marketing pushes had nothing to do with their USP, and it made it look like that company had a values conflict?

5- From a mentor, Barney Zick, gave me this formula for designing USP’s: “Do you know how [state the pain or problem the prospect has]”, “What I do is [state the solution your product/service solves]”

6- Your USP should address a void in the marketplace, with a promise your firm can honestly fill.

7- The true test of whether you’ve designed a good USP or not, is if it sells for you in the marketplace. Does it define your edge and is or does the marketplace value it with their pocketbook.