When you’re thinking about marketing, the most important question you can ask for your countertop business is: “why should your customers buy from you rather than anyone else?”
If your answer is your prices or business reputation then you need to ask yourself one more question: “Why should your customers buy from you rather than do nothing at all?”
A Unique Selling Proposition
Successfully answering these questions empowers you with a unique selling proposition. A USP is essential if you want to sell more than your competitors, charge higher prices, and hand-pick your customers.
Without a strong USP your customer is more in control of the transaction than you are. You’re constantly in head-to-head battles with competitors, and you will be forever subject to the whims of the market.
A true USP gives you power in every negotiation, it gives you power to close the deal, and it transforms mediocre advertising into GREAT advertising that wins you customers with every campaign.
With it, you get the positioning and respect that make customers knock down YOUR doors and pay the prices you want.
An effective unique selling proposition has four requirements:
- It must state the specific benefit you will get with the product.
- It must be one that your competitors either cannot, or do not, offer.
- It must be so strong it can move the masses.
- It must be tested.
You’re going to learn how to satisfy each of these requirements and walk away with an unbeatable position in the marketplace so you never have to compete with having the lowest price again.
Choose your customers
Here is your first step: choose who you’re selling to.
You can’t formulate an irresistible selling position without first determining who it is that you are selling to. This can be based on a specific demographic or a specific problem your customer faces.
Write out everything about your buyer that you can imagine that is relevant: their age, demographics, gender, family, friends, interests, etc.
Next, write out everything about the problem you solve that is relevant. Is the problem you solve acute or chronic? Is the problem you solve rare or widespread? How hard has it been for your customers (or your competitors) to solve this problem?
Granted, in the countertop industry, we are not curing back pain or fixing crooked teeth. However, there are unique problems that you solve. It may be getting a home ready to be put on the market or making a kitchen more functional. Either way, there are problems your customers face that you provide a solution for.
To construct a unique selling proposition based on your buyer, determine if you can focus on any of the above and be the only one making the claim or offer. Can you get a significantly stronger response from customers by doing so?
If your answer is yes, you are one step closer to developing a solid USP for your business.
Hop to Step Two
