1. First, you need to size up your competition. Who are they? What are they selling?

2. Now, let's move on to your business. What are the features and the benefits of your product or service? List every last one you can think of. Remember, you are looking for benefits, not just features. A benefit is something your customers would find appealing about a feature of your product or service.

Let's say you are selling a computer hard-drive with a 1 gigabyte storage capacity. That's nice, and some people will understand what that's all about. Others will not have a clue. So spell out exactly what that means to them. For example, ?Our hard-drive has 1 gigabyte of storage capacity, which means you can be as productive as you want with virtually no fear of filling it up. In addition, your computer will run at a lightening fast speed.?

I'm sure you can do even better. The point is, you need to translate the features of your product or service into benefits. Now this may seem obvious to you, but the best advertising spells everything out for its prospects.

So make sure to spell out exactly what your clients will get if they use your product or service. Will they make more money, take a step forward with their career, or lose weight?

What is the ultimate end goal a prospect interested in your product or service would probably like to achieve? Make sure you spell out how your product or service will help them achieve that. If there is more than one end goal, list each of them out. Different benefits will appeal to different prospects. And of course, you want to appeal to as many of your prospects as possible (however, you ultimately pick one or two for the USP ? the rest of will be expanded on in your sales copy).

If you are having trouble coming up with benefits, try writing out all the features of your product or service. Then, next to each feature, write out why it is important. What does that feature mean to your prospect? These are your product's benefits.

3. Next, let's determine what unique qualities your product or service possesses. Circle all the benefits from the table above that separate your product or service from your competition. One thing you should realize is even if your product is virtually the same as your competition; you can still come up with a USP. Simply offer a guarantee, better service, better value, or faster delivery. Dig deep to find something that makes you stand apart.

Or create that special something right now!

4. Somewhere within the list of your benefits and features is the beginning of your USP. Write out 5 complete USP possibilities below. Eventually, select one of them (remember, you may always test it and change it later if it isn't working).

Copyright ? 2005 by L A Parmley. All rights reserved.