In sales and marketing you always look for the USP of the product or service that you are promoting. USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition. It is what makes your offer different from all the others in the market place. You too have a personal USP.

What is it that makes you different from all the other people in the world?

One of the truly amazing things about this world that we live in is that no two people are exactly the same. Even so called identical twins are different because, although they may have started their existence genetically the same, their different life experiences have created unique individuals.

There are probably many things that are unique about you but what we are looking for here is something unique that can help you achieve your goal.

The term USP was coined by Rosser Reeves in his influential book on advertising titled "Reality in Advertising" published in 1961. He states that the Unique Selling Proposition must contain three ingredients.

The first ingredient is that it must offer a specific benefit that comes from buying your product or service.

At this point I think it is important to make a clear distinction between a benefit and a feature. A feature is a particular aspect of a product or service. A benefit is the reward gained because of that feature.

For example the air conditioning unit in your car is a feature of the car. The benefit is that you keep cool on a hot day. Products and services have feature but people buy the benefits.

When it comes to discovering the unique benefit that you can offer you first have to decide what your goal is. If your goal is to find a romantic partner then you would be looking for a different type of benefit to offer than if your goal was to make a million dollars, or to gain a promotion in your career.

Think about yourself for a moment. Think about your skills and the unique combination of experiences that you have had in your life. Think about the lessons that you have learned and the successes that you have had. Now ask yourself the question; what unique benefit could I provide people with?

You have to become a bit creative during this process. For example, if are selling knowledge to a particular group of people then the unique aspect could be the knowledge itself, or it could be the way you teach that knowledge that makes it easier or faster to learn, or it could be that you teach them to apply that knowledge in a unique way in order to get different or better results.

Let's imagine that acquiring wealth is your goal. If you start brainstorming around your knowledge, skills, experiences, and talents, then I am sure that you will be able to find a unique benefit that you could offer people. A benefit that others would want and be willing to pay for.

Remember that the world is a huge market place and with the aid of technology such as the internet you can offer your products and services to this global market.

The second ingredient is that the USP must be something that your competition cannot, or does not, offer.

Ideally your USP is something that only you can offer. That would give you a monopoly on that benefit which is a powerful position to be in if you market it well. However it is not essential that the benefit that you offer is actually, totally unique. What is important is that you are the first to market around that particular benefit and so it is perceived to be unique to you.

The question for you to ask is how can I market my personal USP in such a way that the market place perceives it as being unique?

The third ingredient is that the USP must be stated in such a way that it irresistibly motivates the consumer to buy your product or service.

This is an essential ingredient of success that many people totally miss. How often do you hear someone say that they were passed over for a promotion and yet the person who got the job is nowhere near as qualified, experienced or as capable as they are. The person has completely missed the point. The other person got the promotion because they were better at selling their USP. They were better at self promoting in such a way that the decision maker bought the idea that they should award the job promotion to them.

Whether you are aiming to become rich, or advance your career, or gain a romantic partner, or any of a thousand other possible successes your chance of winning will be greatly enhanced if you discover and market your own personal USP.

Summary

Here are the three component of the USP that you need to discover and use.
- a specific benefit for your target market.
- the benefit is perceived, by your target market, to be unique to you.
- a proposal that irresistibly motivates your target market to buy from you.


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