What's that, you ask? Well, a USP is a Unique Selling Proposition. It's a one to two sentence phrase that lets your customers know exactly why they should buy your product over your competitor's products.

Sounds obvious, but think about it. Why should your customers buy from you and not someone else? You need a good reason; otherwise, your lack of one will indicate that you are merely jumping around shouting out "buy mine", "buy mine" just like virtually everyone else out there (no wonder very few businesses ever make it to their 5th year).

Your USP should spell out exactly what your major benefit is. What will your product or service do for the prospect if he or she buys?

Think about all those Pizza jingles you hear advertised, those are USP's.

Whatever you are selling, think of its best benefit. Turn that into a phrase and you will have your USP. If you can twist the phrase in a way that makes you appear different than your competitors that's even better. Remember, you want to focus on your unique appeal.

To further explain, your niche targets one general audience. Your USP goes even further. It can target one specific audience within your niche.

Here are 6 different sample "spins" you can put on your product or service that can help lead to your USP.

1. Do you want to be known for value?
2. How about selection?
3. What about quality?
4. For speed of service?
5. For a no-risk purchase?
6. For a lifetime warranty?

You can even use more than one of the above examples in combination. Just make sure you select your "spin" based on something you can actually follow through on. Obviously, if you aren't comfortable guaranteeing next-day service because you don't believe you can provide it to your customers, you don't want to choose that.

Think about offering a guarantee and add that to your USP.

To successfully select your USP, you should research your competition first. Characterize who they cater to (i.e., value-seekers, people who want quality, fast service, etc...).

Then find a void in your niche.

Perhaps no one offers value? Well maybe you should think about offering more value than your competition. As you can imagine, filling a popular void might just boost your sales above and beyond anything you've accomplished yet.

Unique positioning is the best way to stand out in a thicket of fierce competition.

Copyright ? 2005 by L A Parmley. All rights reserved.