Offering a Unique Selling Proposition
Say you're a restauranteur with a clean and beautiful place, tastefully decorated, where you serve great food at reasonable prices with good service... Guess what? There are hundreds of other restaurants nearby that are also nice, also provide good service, and their food is not too bad either.
The question that you need to ask yourself is this: Why should people go to my restaurant and not to these other ones instead? In order to stand out among the many other restaurants nearby, your place must offer your clients an advantage over your competitors. If you don’t offer something special, something unique, then people don’t have any special motivation to go your place.
This special offering is called a Unique Selling Proposition (or USP for short), and it is that special something that differentiates your place from every other "me too" establishment.
If you want to differentiate your business from your competitors, you need to have a USP.
You need to dedicate some time, and think hard about this. You must identify what kind of unique offering your business can provide to your clients.
• What are you the most proud of about your business?
• What is special about your place, your product, and/or your service?
Think about it. After all, when you opened your restaurant you must have done it for a reason.
Didn’t you open your business so that you could offer something different—or better—than what was already available? Something special? If so, this could be your USP.
Once you get it, once you know what’s special or different about your place from any other restaurant, don’t be shy about promoting it. Put it on all your collateral materials: on your website, your business card, your postcards, and your newsletters. Tell your staff about it, your clients, your providers, and your banker. Tell your lawyer and your CPA. Tell the whole world about that unique factor that differentiates your place from all the others.
But don’t just use your USP for marketing purposes; you need to adopt and live it or it won’t really mean anything.
Developing, identifying, and incorporating your USP into everything you do is challenging, but the reward will be worth the time and effort. It will give you differentiation and advantage from any other run-of-the-mill establishment out there.
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