Jack Welch once said: If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete. Does your business have discrimination and unique value propositions that you employ? Is it just good enough or is it a real winner? And do you know how to convert average value propositions into winners?
Do you agree with Jack Welsh’s quote above? We certainly do.
With little to no competitive advantage, you will compete and lose. Why would anyone want to do that? That is why we wholeheartedly agree with Jack Welsh.
Think of grit. Grit is the perseverance and passion to achieve all goals. Sometimes you will hear grit referred to as mental toughness. Angela Duckworth, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that grit is a strong predictor of success and the ability to reach one’s goals.
We have found many businesses that cannot articulate a single way of how their business is truly unique. Forget multiple unique selling propositions.
With the advent of the Internet, the number of marketing options available to both budding and experienced entrepreneurs has become staggering.
What analogy to this situation stands out in our minds? Trying to win against your competition without good business differentiation is like trying to sail with no wind. Is no way there? A business is a value delivery system. Do you know the ‘value experiences’ your business delivers? Do you know your targeted customer segments?
A value proposition is a short statement that tells your prospect why they should buy from your company. It is focused on outcomes. Your proposition distills all the complexity of the value you provide into an easy-to-remember phrase that your client can easily grasp and remember.
This helps spread word-of-mouth marketing and it differentiates you from the competition. Keep in mind that your value proposition should identify and remedy an unmet need that your customers face. It should relieve their pain.
Related: How to Frame Marketing Messages for Optimum Engagement
Regardless of the size of your business or the type of industry you are in, your company should have value propositions that stand out from your competition and are the difference makers.
To help you convert so-so value propositions into difference-makers, here are some guidelines that will be a big help:
Become your customers
“Become” your customers instead of just asking them what they want from your business. Listen, observe, and study to creatively infer from what customers DO.
As an example, Dutch Boy Paint took the approach to think like their customers. Paint cans are heavy, hard to carry, hard to close, hard to open, hard to pour, and certainly no fun. Yet they’ve been around for a long time, and most people assumed that there had to be a reason why they were so bad.
Dutch Boy realized that there was no reason. They also realized that the can was an integral part of the product: People don’t buy paint, they buy painted walls, and the can make that process much easier.
Unique value proposition … focus on best value
The most useful definition of a value proposition is a believable collection of the most persuasive best values why people should notice you and take the action you’re seeking.
This way, it guides your decisions much more clearly and can be used as the basis for marketing messages.
Let’s take Zappos for example. If you are an online clothing and shoe business like Zappos, with a good selection, decent prices, delivery, a guarantee, good customer service, and a website, why would anyone buy from you? There’s surely a competitor who beats you in at least some of those aspects.
You don’t have to be the best in every way. Sure, it’s great if you are. But realistically, it’s difficult enough to be the best couple of ways. Zappos decided to push to be number one in all things customer service. Doing a great job of that, aren’t they? A growing business because of its customer service value propositions.
Value propositions into winners … heart of the value proposition
The heart of a winning unique selling proposition is the end result experiences of value a business intends to deliver to its target customers. The end result experiences.
For example, the Safelite business model and value propositions are built around customer convenience and trust. They take their service to the customer and build trust by a super guarantee. Customers shopping for an auto windshield repair love that Safelite can deliver the repairs as easily and conveniently as possible.
Value proposition template … articulate for customers
Value propositions need to be articulated for customers … not for your products, services, or business processes. Products, services, processes are the vehicles for the proposition delivery.
Take a recent JetBlue commercial for a great example of how to articulate value propositions to customers. Have you seen the latest JetBlue commercial design? You know … the one with the great use of the analogy using pigeons?
Quite clever isn’t it, and likely one you will remember and maybe even talk about, right? And perhaps the best example of articulating value propositions in a commercial I have ever seen.
Utilize multiple value propositions
When your customers have customers, different value propositions are required for different players in the value delivery chain.
The Safelite business is a great example of using multiple value propositions at once. While many businesses have a difficult time deriving one good unique selling proposition, a few have defined multiple unique selling propositions. The best brand we could find with the best multiple selling propositions is Safelite Autoglass.
Have you ever heard of Safelite Autoglass and its business model? They have created The Safelite Advantage™ as a bundle of unique selling propositions providing what consumers have identified as their most important vehicle glass service needs.
Don’t take value for granted
Customers perceive relative value in any proposition, even implicit ones … so every business delivers a unique selling proposition (explicit or implicit). You need to design it explicitly. Don’t let it happen by chance.
How did Dutch Boy Paint stir up the paint business? It’s so simple, it’s scary. They built their value proposition by changing the design of their paint can.
Creative employment
People won’t ever buy from you if they don’t even understand why they should pay attention to you. And they notice you only if you have strong and standout value propositions.
Have you seen this Fios commercial? If you have a product that truly discriminates you from your competition, build your story and messages on these discriminators. Several of the most effective value propositions we have seen in a while are shared in these 30 seconds.
As the child in the commercial tries to do things with his TV, his uncle has to tell him that those things don’t exist with their system. But they obviously do in the system the little boy is familiar with at home.
It’s just that the uncle is not aware that they exist since his system doesn’t have them. Don’t need to say much as the visuals do much of the talking. Powerful.
Always demonstrate proof
If you say, my pizza is the best in the world; will people flood your restaurant? No. They won’t believe you.
Without proof, you can’t say much before it starts to sound like marketing talk. No one pays attention. Or remembers. They just don’t believe it. No believing, no trust. It is all downhill after that.
For example, I recently saw a digital marketing competitor site where they claimed to be the secret weapon of digital marketing for the most successful companies in the world. Needless to say, we doubt anyone can take that seriously when nothing supports the claim.
As long as you don’t prove your claims, people are unlikely to really believe them. And your unique selling proposition becomes of no use.
Here is a very different value proposition that you rarely see used and yet it is easy to demonstrate proof. Toms Shoes are quirky, comfy, light, and inexpensive. That alone probably isn’t enough to make a company stand out in the shoe business.
The most unique and compelling part of the TOMS Shoes proposition is that they give a new pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair you purchase. You don’t even have to remember the exact words. The story is what sticks in your head.
Who else cares that much? Very few.
Be clever in communicating claims
It’s your job to hit people in the head with what makes you different and worth attention. Clever ways to communicate your claims. In believable and memorable ways.
Let’s go back to the recent JetBlue commercial for an example of how to be clever in communicating claims of value propositions to customers. Have you seen the latest JetBlue commercial design? You know … the one with the great use of the analogy using pigeons?
Quite clever isn’t it, and likely one you will remember and maybe even talk about, right? And perhaps the best example of communicating value propositions in a commercial I have ever seen.
The bottom line
So, if you were wondering where to put your marketing time and energy to optimize how to win customers from your competitors, focus on defining and delivering winning value propositions.
Ones that can be the difference-maker.
Comments
2 responses to “The Go-Getter’s Guide to Discrimination and Unique Value Propositions”
Enjoyed reading this post, really good one. We offer online DM and SEO training and we have separate landing pages for those two. We were thinking of to put some of the important USPs of our courses and have come up with couple of points too. But this article has given some very interesting ideas which we can create and hopefully those will help in attracting more prospective learners and will benefit them with our advance courses. Thanks for sharing this post with us. Two thumbs up for this.
Thanks for the feedback … glad I was able to help.