THE ALMIGHTY USP (UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION OR UNIQUE SELLING POINT).
“What separates your product or service from your competition?” Different Prospects require different USPs and they need to be made aware of them. Be prepared.
The strongest benefit for a given target market sector is often represented by the term USP, meaning “Unique Selling Point” or Proposition. For many companies or Salespeople, no real uniqueness exists in their USP, so the word ‘strongest’ instead of ‘unique’ would be more apt. Real or perceived uniqueness is obviously very important because it generally causes a prospect to buy from one salesperson or supplier as opposed to another. If there were umpteen Flip Phones (that that are making a big comeback) on the market, the ones that would sell the best would be those which had the strongest unique selling points.
Price is not a USP. Sure, some people only buy the cheapest, but most do not; most will pay a little or a lot extra to get what they want. As with the example of the New Flip Phones. An advantage that produces a money-saving benefit is different to straight-forward price discounting. A low price is not a benefit in this context, and any product that is marketed purely with a low-price USP will always be vulnerable to competition which offers proper user-related benefits, most of which may come in the form of a higher value, higher price package.
What makes it difficult to succeed all the time with a fixed USP is that one man’s USP is another man’s dead donkey – Fixed USPs by their nature often fail to take account of a prospect’s particular circumstances and detailed needs. The name itself – unique selling point/propostions – says it all. Purchasers of all sorts are more interested in buying, and making an outstanding benefit to their needs salient is what we’re talking about here.
Each type of prospect has different reasons for buying. Market sectors or prospect types without a PC, Laptop or Tablet, are more likely to respond to the saving benefit of the latest version of a “Phablet” as all the technology they would ever need, as the product’s main USP. Market sectors or prospect types already possessing an office stocked with the latest hardware, would respond more to the expandabilty Convenience Factor of the New Flip Phones as the product’s main USP. Another prospect-type is people who are not technically competent or advanced, and may well respond best to a USP that the seller could fail to even mention, ie., training and a free technical support hotline (if such is really offered by the reseller’s manufacturer).
