Why businesses must be different and how

In the face of stiff competition, every Hudson Valley company has to give the consumer a reason to choose its product or service. Many advertisers don’t appreciate the need to offer a USP, “unique selling proposition.” With a universe full of choices the consumer still has to decide what ones to choose.

One of the biggest changes in businesses is the amazing proliferation of product and service choices in every category. The consumer has so many good alternatives that the only way to win their business is to present your uniqueness. If ordinary products like bananas and chicken can be differentiated you can develop a powerful USP too.

Like rabbits reproducing, the marketing arena can be viewed as an ever-increasing choice of categories. The computer started as a single category but over time, has split into:

mainframes
minicomputers
workstations
personal computers
laptops
notebooks
handhelds

There are over 1 million SKUs, or “stock keeping units,” in America. An average supermarket displays 40,000 with an average family filling 80 to 85 percent of its needs from 150 of those available choices. This has led to an entire industry dedicated giving advice on selections ”“ from choosing mutual funds to the right MBA program.

How to establish a USP. Ordinary bananas became “better bananas” by sticking on a small Chiquita label. Sometimes a little personality is all it takes to set an otherwise anonymous product apart. Frank Perdue became the “tough man behind tender chicken.”

Rather than just calling a special big cantaloupe “big,” they introduced a new category called “Crenshaw Melons.” The Chinese gooseberry didn’t sound appetizing, but by changing its name to “Kiwi Fruit,” consumers were willing to give it a try.

Every organization must USP their products and services. For many years, pork meant pig”™s meat. Pork producers jumped on the chicken bandwagon and became the “other white meat.” If people can come up with ways to differentiate between pork and bananas, differentiating your company”™s products or services should be easy by comparison.

David Aaker, author of “Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant” points out a few service industries”™ USP examples. “Enterprise Rent-A-Car provides rental cars to people whose cars are being repaired rather than the business traveler or family vacation markets.” It wasn”™t a new type of car, but simply a different focus on a very specific segment.

Aaker then says, “When Westin introduced the ”˜Heavenly Bed,”™ it was not an R&D breakthrough that was involved.” The bed used existing technology and featured upgraded quality. Every hotel sells heads in beds. “Heavenly gave Westin a USP because it changed the way hotels are perceived and evaluated.”

Cutting prices as a USP is usually insanity. For example, Charles Schwab was the nation”™s first major discount broker. His price approach broke the grip that big full service brokerage firms had on the market and Schwab did very well for a few years.

Soon, however, an army of other discount brokers followed Schwab and, more recently these were followed by yet another army of even cheaper brokers on the Internet.
In the last several years, Schwab has moved to the higher ground offering more consulting and service. At some point, almost every company that starts out differentiating itself on price finds that it has to compete differently.

Advertising guru David Ogilvy said, “Any damn fool can put on a deal.” How will you differentiate and use your USP?

Questions for discussion:

”¢ What is our current USP? What can we do better than anyone else? What new sub-category in our marketplace could we create and dominate?

”¢ How could we like Enterprise, Chiquita, The Westin or Perdue take our existing product or service and brand it so it stands out as the best customer solution?

Joe Murtagh is The DreamSpeaker, an international keynote speaker, meeting facilitator and business trainer. For questions or comments, Joe@TheDreamSpeaker.com, www.TheDreamSpeaker.com or call (800) 239-0058.