Unique selling proposition

The unique selling proposition serves as a marketing technique that will set you apart from all other business coaches in the marketplace. The unique selling proposition, or USP, can be key to the success of a small business venture, which operates primarily in small competitive niches. This makes the USP essential as the basis for overall marketing strategies.

Until you are clear on what your unique selling proposition is and how to use it to your advantage, your business will fail to fully develop. The USP is simply what differentiates your company from others like it in the marketplace. It is a concrete benefit that makes your venture preferable to others. This proposition is becoming more and more indispensable, especially in online businesses, which are increasingly saturated with similar propositions.

Case study of unique selling proposition

As a professional coach, there must always be one aspect or element that you use differently from all the others. That's why you must first delimit your niche market. To give you a better idea of the usefulness of the USP, here is a practical example:

• Alex has been a worker in the business sector all his adult life, as it allowed him to provide adequately for his family. A few years ago he divorced his wife, which resulted in emotional and physical difficulties for some time afterwards.
• As he went through this experience he noticed that most people who get divorced go through the same emotional and physical instability. But after a long time of working on himself, he managed to recover completely.
• To achieve this he started by taking better care of his physical condition, eating healthy and exercising. At the end of the process, he experienced a profound personal growth.
• This is why he has decided to help other people who are going through the same situation he went through and become a life coach. To support couples and improve their relationship and communication avoiding divorce.
• For now, Alex keeps working in his company full time, since it is his only source of income, but he has taken advantage of his time to take a course that certifies him as a coach and found a new LLC.
• He is currently on the client search side of the business, but is having some difficulty in doing so, as he has found there is some saturation in the market for coaches focused on treating couples in trouble. He is not sure what he can do to stand out from the competition.
• So you decide, through a brainstorming session with your professional coach, to look for information on life coaches who focus more on individuals, rather than couples, during separations or divorces.
• Upon researching, she was surprised to find that there were only a few coaches offering this particular service. As a result, he continued his search for a new niche market. Alex then came to the conclusion that his target audience would be men rather than couples, as during his research he found that most coaches focused on couples and those who coached individuals preferred women.
• In addition, he determined to focus on coaching men after divorce because he found a great need to support men in adjusting to their new lives as singles.
• In short, Alex decided to serve as a life coach for men who have recently divorced and support them in their re-entry into single life through healthy lifestyle habits and emotional stability.
• Alex highlights his life coaching venture into this niche market because of his personal experience. Having gone through a similar situation and come out the other side much stronger and more stable than before, he has a special perspective to help others do the same.
• This approach works as a powerful message that Alex, as a life coach, communicates to his potential clients, helping to build confidence that he has all the tools to guide these men in times of difficulty.
• If we use all of this to form a headline, it could be, "Need help repairing your life after divorce?"
• And the business tagline could be something along the lines of, "Let me serve as your guide and walk alongside you on the path to the new you."

Creating your unique selling proposition

To create your unique selling proposition you will need to answer the questions:

• What makes you and your venture unique?

• Why should customers buy what you sell?

After answering these questions you can form a headline for your business, which will serve as the basis for a unique slogan. To assist you in answering the first question, what you should do is list 3 aspects in which you and your coaching business are unique. Then list 3 characteristics that stand out to your ideal clients.

To answer the second question, you must first answer about your specific expertise that assists you in a particular market sector. It should be clear, what characteristics you have as a coach that can evoke confidence in clients.

When you have delimited all of the above, then create a unique and special slogan that identifies you and your venture. Make sure it is clear what you do and who your clients are.

Remember, the unique selling proposition is what differentiates your venture from others in the market, for your target audience. That is, it is not intended for the global market of customers, only for the target customers you have chosen.

A good USP is key to obtain and retain quality customers. You should keep in mind that creating a unique selling proposition is not so easy for all companies. In Alex's case, for example, it was relatively easy to discover an unsaturated market with affordable features for his business, but for most businesses this is not the case.

That is why it is important to conduct a good market study that allows you to know in detail the generality of the market and better focus your business efforts. The best USP directly solves a particular need of your ideal clientele, before starting to differentiate your company from other similar ones.

Choosing your ideal customer

To choose your unique selling proposition you must know as much as you can about your ideal customer. To discover this you must ask yourself the following questions:

• What does my target customer want?

• How can my service or product satisfy their needs?

• What motivates them to buy?

• Why would they choose my business over others like it?

It is not enough to target global clientele only, you must know the consumers you prefer to sell to and why.

The needs of the target customer

When you have discovered this customer, to whom you want to sell, it is time to start with the next step of the USP. In this, you must then explain how your business intends to meet the specific needs of the target audience.

In general, people are not interested in buying products or services, but want to satisfy specific needs or solve specific problems. This concept can be as simple as buying a high-quality, durable tool kit, but most of the time it is more complicated from a psychological perspective.

An