USP Soul — Mind dump
*Note from the end. This has not been editted in any way. If it makes for poor reading I apologise. If you can read between the lines and poor spelling, you may just find a nugget of gold or two.
The idea is simple. Recruit Secondary school teachers into permanent positions in London. Sounds easy enough if you know what you’re doing.
For me, the best brands have a simple foundations which they present their core message and service to the world with. Often identified as unique selling points or propositions. In non competitive markets, for example rolling out a brand new product or service to consumers differentation isn’t as essential. These products often focus on marketing the brand promise, or rather the new features that customers will benefit from. In competitive markets, like recruitment the USP’s are essential for separation. It represents your knowledge of the market, you have listened and what you’re doing differently. So for me, I feel it is key to be crystal clear on the USP’s. I’ve found that naturally theses USP’s are what helped me to form the crux of the business idea anyway. However, I just wanted to talk a little about the process of identifying them, working the ideas out on the whiteboard through brainstorming in order to position them correctly to for yourself, stakeholders and the market.
If you can articulate the purpose the of your USP’s it will help eliminate 1000’s of future decisions on the direction of the company and what it is exactly you do. Keeping things simple you know what you do and what you’re working towards. For your stakeholders they must understand the above but also the benefits to the market and financially for their pockets. For your consumers, it demonstrates your expertise when you can demonstrate the how you do what you do and why. There are huge upsides to transparency.
The following might not apply to all USP formation but I’ve considered it in some depth and feel it is relatively universal. But like any theories, it’s subject to interpretation and is not the be all and end all of all paradigms. Disclaimer over.
Imagine the arrows of a compass without the N, E, S & W labels. First look at the horizontal axis. At one end we have ‘the feeling of belonging’, at the opposite end we have ‘the feeling of independance’. This is the first of two paradoxes of human beings. Some people need that feeling of belonging to feel secure, but secretly they dream about breaking out of their comfort zones and being bigger than something than the group they belong to. This could be family, friends, their work, brand loyalty etc. ‘If only there was the perfect opportunity that had zero risk and I my group would welcome me back if it all went Pete Tong’. The opposite end is Independance. These people are proud of their independance. It’s uncompromisable, I sit within this stereostype. Often taking risks that are hard or even impossible to justify to others. Medicority is not an option. But their paradox is that most of the time feels people who live and breathe independance, deep down would love the security provided within the belonginng group. It’s tiring taking risks all the time but the opposite end of the spectrum conflicts with their identity as a human. We can’t expect either group to give up everything, but if you can tap into these factors, these are what i call closing factors, or buying factors. The polar opposites on the N-S axis I have labelled Stability vs Risk. I’ll let you deduct from this what you will in the same way I have done for the E-W axis. My point here I think you need two have at least one USP that fits somewhere on each axis in order to deliver a whole service where your consumers naturally just feel at one with your brand. Like you just get them. What’s important here is not to worry about where your USP sits on the axis. It will probably be critically at one end or the other. in fact I think it’s better for a strong identity for it to be heavily weighted at one end. But here is the secret sauce. Demonstrate empathy by using the power of the human paradox! Look at your USP where it sits on the axis. Where the crosshair joins in the middle draw a circle. You have your strong selling point but how can you add enough sprinkle to balance it. Why is this important. If your USP is designed to attact the Independant thinkers then that is exactly what it will do. It will attract them and a % of these will buy just from this alone. But if you REALLY want to kick ass and maximise the potential for converting all of these interested customers, the powder you keep dry or the subtlties in your marketing will come from being able to demonstrate this neutrality. My thinking here is not shove these pradoxes down people’s throats. Harness the power, keep that knowledge to for yourself and for your stakeholders but be able to deliver for your consumers.
Finally I believe it is absolutely essential to have your ‘vision’ for your company as a USP. Seriously, if you are entering a market for the greater good of it rather than to sieve out cash from a slice of the pie (which is fair enough if thats what you want to do, lots of people do it.) then articulating it loud and proud will help bucket loads in the winning of customers loyalty and support.
Put simply I call this model my Brand Soul. It’s aim is to give off an air of seamless brand experience. It’s the wow factor without shouting wow. All based upon a simple counter balance and vision.
Thats all for now, this has turned into a post on how I improved my USPs rather than how I developed them. Next post on how I developed them.
Mind dump done.
