My Marketing Mentor

Why you don’t have to have a USP

Most marketers will insist that you must have a USP, a Unique Selling Proposition, if you want to have any chance of making it in this competitive, dog-eat-dog world. If you don’t have something that makes your business different to your competition, you might as well forget it.

As a classically trained marketer I should subscribe to this way of thinking. As someone who has witnessed many businesses thrive without a specific USP though I find it hard to do so.

Have you have spent hours, weeks, months and maybe even years coming up with your USP? Are you still searching for that ‘holy grail’? If you have found a USP which has truly given you that competitive edge and taken your business to a whole new level, that is absolutely great, and there is now no need for you to read on.

If, on the other hand your USP is somewhat vague, fluffy or non-existent, don’t worry. You don’t have to have a USP, and here’s why.

In my experience, just being better at promoting your business than anyone else is much more powerful than having a USP. If your marketing isn’t consistent and strategic then all those people whom you’d like as clients won’t know about you. Even if you have the best USP in the world, if you don’t promote it, it’s also the best kept secret in the world.

The good news is that most of your competition is really bad at promoting themselves. Most small businesses don’t have a strategic plan. Out of those who do, many don’t follow the plan.  

So ask yourself who your dream clients are, what’s important to them and how you can most effectively get them to take notice of you.

If you’re stuck for ideas on how to get them to take notice of you, why not come along to our next workshop?

In the meantime I’d love to know whether you have a USP? Is it working for you?

Learning to Love Sales

If you hate having to sell your business, yourself and/or your or services to a potential client, you're about to be let into a huge secret. The reason you hate selling, is because your Marketing...well sucks.

Before you get angry at me and hit 'unsubscribe', please hear me out.

Most of us unfortunately tend to have quite a negative view of sales. We often associate the word ‘sales’ with someone trying to sell us something we don't want. So the person doing the selling appears pushy and annoying, and that is the absolute last thing we want to do to our prospective clients. We want them to want our services, so we don't have to convince them that what we offer is the best thing since sliced bread. Ideally we want them to have come to that conclusion long before we even have our first direct contact with them. We dream of a steady flow of pre-qualified prospects who have already decided they love what we do. That’s where your Marketing comes in.  

When I started my first business a few years ago in the UK, I spent a lot (far too much) time knocking on doors, and having most of them closed, sometimes slammed in my face. Ouch! I promise it wasn't fun. After a few, very discouraging months of experiencing what it's like to be a failed salesperson, I decided I had to change my tactics.

As embarrassing as it is to admit this, I realised at the time that I had been completely neglecting the one area I was supposed to be an expert in - Marketing! I had a top degree, certificate and several years experience in Marketing, and I still failed to realise the big mistake I was making.

I needed to create demand for my product. I started to spend 90% of my time and efforts on Marketing, and put sales on hold completely for a while. The results, as you may imagine were dramatic. I began to receive inquiries for my product from all over the world, and the only selling I had to do was closing the deal.   

So, if you dread selling, spend more time and get really smart about your Marketing. Make sure that you are targeting the people whom you believe to be your ‘dream clients’ with the correct messaging i.e. the key messages which convince them that you are the perfect supplier for them.

 

Finding new customers

Flying Solo recently conducted a survey to which 1200 micro businesses in Australia responded. For me the most interesting question they asked was 'What has been your biggest challenge in the last 12 months?'. Can you guess what got the most votes?

 

'Finding new customers/clients'

 

Anyone surprised by that? Didn't think so. However, I think that we need to turn this challenge on its head. Our challenge shouldn't be to find new customers. It should be:

 

'Enabling new customers/clients to find us' 

 

That's where the power of good Marketing comes in. If you get it right, you won't have to go out and look for new customers. You will have new customers finding you.  

Some of the critical aspects of marketing you must get right are your branding, your key messages, your target market, your customer service and the medium you use to get your message out to the right people. Too much to cover in one single little blog.

 

However I would like to leave you with a really important question to ask yourself. If you can answer this succinctly and precisely, you've already made a massive step in the right direction.  

 

People contact my business for the service/product I offer, because...