How to make Your Business Stand Out from your Competitors

With all the competitors you have, it's important to offer your clients something that they don't; that way, your advertising has a much better chance of being successful as you set yourself apart from the crowd.

Succeeding in business is about doing things better, faster and more efficiently than your competition and making sure that you tell your prospects about it.

Some people call this uniqueness a "point of difference" or a "unique selling proposition".

THAT’S what you communicate in your advertising — and THAT’S what will set you apart.

Obviously, the whole point of having a point of difference is about being different, so adopting all of your competitors’ points of difference will not be enough. You need to find something that really sets you apart, something that identifies YOUR business.

This makes your firm special and ‘indispensable’ in the eyes of your customer or client.
So, how do you differentiate your business?

By creating a USP that is so distinct and appealing it sets you and your business favourably apart from your generic brand competitors.

Your USP should be powerful enough that whenever a client needs to invest, it brings your company immediately to mind.

Conveying the USP via your marketing, and with the backing of your business performance, will make your business success inevitable.

Some great USP examples

Here are just some examples of companies who have changed their business standing dramatically just by developing powerful USP’s.

Dominos Pizzas

Now there are plenty of pizza places around, and usually none of them have enough drivers. So we all know that Friday and Saturday night’s you can be looking at up to an hour or over wait for a pizza delivery — and then it’s soggy!

Some bright spark at Dominos figured this out, and dominos used their USP to overcome this must basic pizza delivery problem, they also put in place measures to ensure that they would follow through on their USP — they didn’t want to give away pizzas for free.

There simple but extremely effective USP was:

"They’d deliver hot, juicy, delicious pizza to your door in 30 minutes or less, and if they didn’t you’d receive it FREE."

This simple USP shot them straight up to the top of the market.

Howard Ruff

The best example of how important a USP can be for Financial Planners is Howard Ruff. While all of the other Wall Street professionals concentrated on impressing the wealthy. Howard Ruff built his own newsletter empire (worth over $20 million) by positioning himself as the ‘common’ man’s Financial Planner.

"I am the financial advisor to the middle class. And I want to protect your interests at a different level. I know how hard you work to make a dollar. I know how important it is that you do not lose it. I know how critical your retirement monies are to you. I respect that, and I approach your situation differently from anybody else".

Avis

For years Avis rent-a-cars sat second in their marketplace, behind Hertz a bigger company with a bigger fleet, not that they didn’t do well there, but it seemed impossible for them, no matter what they tried to knock Hertz out of the water and achieve the level of marketshare they required.
Still all of their trying must have paid off, because they came up with this USP, which, along with good service, better rates and hard work, enabled them to extend themselves quite considerable.

1. "We’re number two, we try harder"

Federal Express

"When it absolutely, positively has to be overnight — Fedex it!"

You’ve probably seen this one before used for Comet here in Australia. It’s a simple USP but works extremely well as it offers reasurrance — absolutely, positively.

Property investment

One of our clients in the property investment game found that many of his competitors have given his industry a bad name and with that many potential investors were sceptical of property people. With that, our client decided to survey potential clients and find out what their major fears were when it came to investing in property. He found them to be:

• long vacancy periods;
• poor rental return;
• bad tenants;
• paying too much;
• poor growth area;
• lack of tax effectiveness.

From there, he pinpointed the factors that impacted on a clients’ investment results. Many of the points were the same:

• rental return – type of dwelling and suburb;
• growth – price originally paid, type of dwelling, location;
• tax – new property, depreciation allowances;
• cash flow – the right structuring.

After he did that, he then developed a system that ensured that every facet of his clients’ investment in property was designed to provide them with an environment that maximised their returns and allayed their fears.

Primarily, he did that by creating a one stop shop of professionals in a variety of fields who were property investment experts, so clients enjoyed the very best chances of maximising their investment results.eg.

• depreciation schedule from a quantity surveyor to maximise depreciation allowances;
• properties sold to valuation and an official valuation supplied;
• their affairs were structured in such a way as to maximise the tax effectiveness of the transaction;
• strict property selection standards were put in place to ensure the property and the area was likely to enjoy solid growth and low vacancy rates;
• a range of insurances were provided by an insurance agents to minimise their risks;
• a Financial Planner was on hand to provide specialist investment advice that ensures that property investment was right for their situation.

Imagine what having a USP that sets you apart from your competition will do for business ... one that makes you ‘indispensable’ in the eyes of your customer or client.

Yes, it will make a massive difference.

So how do you go about creating a great USP for your business?

Think of it in this way:

If you needed brain surgery would you talk to a General Practitioner or would you talk to a Brain Surgeon?

Of course you would talk to a Brain Surgeon - talking to a GP would be silly.

Andy Ireland is the Brain Surgeon of USP generation. He's widely known as THE guy to talk to when you want a USP that makes you stand out head and shoulders above your comeptitors.

Andy is a real pro when it comes to digging out what makes your business special and he has a unique package that can help you define yours as well.

Click here to find out more.