Rosser Reeves was one of the pioneering Madmen who changed the landscape of modern advertising when he coined the term 鈥渦nique selling proposition鈥� (USP). His innovation was the idea that brand recognition came down to a singular point (which he also called a 鈥渦nique selling point鈥�).
He coined many USPs including the M&M鈥檚 tagline, 鈥淢elts in your mouth, not in your hand.鈥� Today, abundant examples of USPs exist that you readily know. 鈥�15 minutes will save you 15% or more.鈥� 鈥淓ven a caveman can do it.鈥� 鈥淛ust do it.鈥� 鈥淭he ultimate driving machine.鈥� And so on. For our older readers, note that the famous line 鈥淲here鈥檚 the beef?!鈥� hasn鈥檛 aired on television in more than 40 years!
In the 1970s, this became known as 鈥減ositioning鈥� when companies started to address market positions catering to targeted audiences鈥攅.g., safety in an automobile versus performance or outdoorsy ruggedness, healthy fast food versus economical, etc. Whether you call it proposition, position, promise, or elevator pitch, the power of a USP is hard to deny. Personally, my preference is to make an audacious promise.
While the concept of the USP is typically applied to company brands, there is significant impact for the salesperson who crafts an audacious promise to differentiate them from the competition. Yet, if I ask salespeople to define their brand, one might say, 鈥淚 return my calls and am dependable.鈥� Another boasts she is 鈥渉onest.鈥� A multitude promise better 鈥渟ervice.鈥� Yawn.
A unique selling promise must first and foremost be 鈥�unique. Otherwise, there is little differentiation or competitive advantage. Every salesperson can promise great service, the return of phone calls, and dependability. A competitive advantage is a value provided that is very difficult for the competition to emulate.
If you want to distinguish yourself as a salesperson, create your own unique selling promise. Here are a couple of ideas that might help you get started:
1. 鈥淚 get your product there on time and complete, perfectly every time.鈥� An industry study once proved that the number one reason a contractor chooses a supplier is on-time delivery. They鈥檒l tell you it鈥檚 all about price because that ploy so easily gets salespeople to cave in a negotiation. It is up to the crafty salesperson to recognize that a price which comes with excess operational costs to the contractor is not a value at all.
So, promise perfect delivery to become the lowest 鈥渢otal cost鈥� supplier. While this may seem like an unattainable promise because contractors are so often disorganized and late in ordering, this promise should come with a caveat. The caveat is that the salesperson needs to explain how orders are processed, deadlines to achieve the product arriving in a timely manner to the jobsite, adequate lead times for successful manufacturing, staging and delivery, and a strong working relationship to ensure optimum communication that helps the contractor plan future orders.
2. 鈥淚 help you increase profits.鈥� There are literally dozens of ways in which you can help your client create profits, but only two categories by which you can do it. You can help the contractor a) operate more efficiently to reduce costs or b) help them increase profits with more sales or greater margins.
This is an area in which most salespeople feel unable to impact a client鈥檚 business. After all, what can a salesperson do to increase a customer鈥檚 sales growth? Some ideas include training seminars for salespeople; regular meetings to discuss future projects to ensure proper allocation of materials, delivery resources, and ordering timeliness; referring a startup company to valuable resource providers of websites, accounting, and more; providing sales leads from walk-in consumers; cultivating a network of close working associates that might include designers and subcontractors as referral sources; and so on.
During these evolving times where technology and speed minimize the time for a human touch, it鈥檚 more important than ever to create your personal value. This begins by first being truly unique in an industry that has historically been slow to evolve. It mostly means going beyond being a product peddler with a price and becoming someone noticeably different than your competition. Strive to be different and you will gain a bigger slice of the pie.
