In fact, once you start thinking more about whom you're selling to rather than what you're selling, you can begin to realize the more tightly you define, identify and target your ideal clients and customers, the easier you'll find it to do business with them and charge higher prices than your competitors.



There is more to it than this and I've given it a very simplistic treatment although it's a good place for us to start.

The next question, though, is once we know whom we're trying to target, what do we say to them and how do we say it? This is your marketing message.

The first thing we need to understand is the way to do it is not the way most businesses are actually doing it. The way it currently works is business owners look around to see what others in the same industry are doing, and then do something broadly the same. The result is it's very hard to distinguish one firm from another, because in terms of their advertising and marketing, they all look the same.

I think it's safe to say all businesses want to do better than their competitors and be the business of choice in their industry yet fail to differentiate themselves from them in any obvious or meaningful way.

Don't take my word for it. Look carefully around at the advertising in your own industry, whatever it is, and sooner or later you'll begin to notice something: almost every advert is basically the same. Almost every one gives a list of services or products and then says they give good service, or that no job is too small, or that they don't levy a callout-charge... the list is endless. They say the same things, in the same way, and usually make the same offers: "we're different from everyone else, we give great service, and we won't be beaten on price".

The problem is, if you're all saying the same thing, there's nothing to induce the readers of your advertisements and other marketing materials to respond to you in preference to your competitors. And let's face it, no one is going to say "we give bad service", are they? In which case, you're actually making a big song and dance about providing the bare minimum level of service your customers can expect: good service!

So, there is virtually no difference between adverts, and in the vast majority of cases absolutely nothing to grab readers' attention and get them picking up their telephones or coming into your place of business.

The simple truth is if you do the same things today you did yesterday, you'll be in the same position tomorrow you're in today. And if you do the same things your competitors do, then you can't expect to be substantially better or worse off than they are, can you?

In short, if you want to get different results from the ones you're getting now, and different results from your competitors', then you need to do something different!

We call this difference your Unique Selling Proposition, or USP - the part of your marketing message differentiating you from your competitors. I'd guess almost every business owner has heard of the USP and I'd bet most of them believe they've embraced the idea; but in my experience, hardly anyone pays little more than lip-service to it.

I don't care what business you're in, and I don't care how "unique" you believe your business to be -- if you want to make your business reach its potential and stand out among your competitors you need a strong USP answering this question: "what is it about your products or services that would lead a client to choose you above all of your competitors?"

And this is true for Acupuncturists, Mortgage Advisers, Fitness Instructors, Travel Agents, Website Designers, Solicitors, Accountants, Kids' Entertainers, Plumbers, Architects, and every other business in between, including mine!

I encourage you to take time to sit down and really think hard about your business and what makes you stand out. It's not enough just to say "we're different" and leave it at that.

Moreover, being different from your competitors is necessary, but it's not sufficient: you've got to be better, too. This can become only more important as we get deeper and deeper into the recession.

A good way to go about creating your own USP is to get a stack of 3" x 5" index cards and writing down on each a single feature of your business. By "feature", I mean something you do. When you've done that, go back over the list and translate each feature into a benefit - what a customer or client gains by using that feature of your business.

Because people don't buy features... they buy benefits.

You've probably heard the old chestnut about how it's not the drill you're buying from the hardware shop but the hole in the wall it gives you.

Well, it's even more than that: you're not buying the drill or the hole. No, you're buying the warm, fuzzy feelings you get from looking at your child's face in the photograph hanging on the screw screwed into the rawplug pushed into the hole the drill drills. We buy on emotion, every time.

So, sell benefits not features. Features are just what you do. And while you might love your business and have a passion for what you do, your customers and clients are interested only in what you can do for them.

For instance, my clients don't want advertisements, sales letters and marketing materials -- they want the benefits of having these things. What my clients really care about, and rightly so, is will the advice and work for which they're paying me make them more money. That's the benefit.

And your business is the same. Whatever business you're in, no one wants your products. What they want is the product of your products.

Finally, once you've got your list of benefits, you're in a position to start thinking about how you can provide those benefits to your customers and clients better than your competitors can. It might be you can do it faster, or to a higher quality, or more consistently.

There really is no limit to what you can come up with if you put your mind to it. Tom Monahan of Domino's Pizza in the US had a simple USP: "Fresh hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less, else it's free". How's that for simplicity and power?

Just try it. Take the time to get the cards and do the exercise. I guarantee it'll be worth it