What does being unique mean to you?

Today I want to follow up on my post about the Unique Selling Proposition or Unique Sales Promise as I prefer to call it. I think the concept of being unique needs a little more attention as it can sound a bit scary.

Being the best in the world

First off, you don’t have to be unique compared to the entire world. As I mentioned in the comments Seth Godin rightly states that while you want to be “the best in the world” at something… it’s up to you to decide the size of your “world.”

Your world might be your local area, or your town/city, or your country, or the literal entire world. It’s up to you and I think you’ll find the best place to start is being unique in your local area or city first. Get that right and then worry about your plans for world domination.

How to be unique

Now if you have a new product – that’s easy – but what about us business owners that have lots of competition. Let’s say you run a dry cleaners… all dry cleaners clean clothes (in theory) so how do you become unique?

Well you could do it by specialising in one particular area (like stain removal) or you could focus on customer service (very friendly staff or clothes pickup service, etc) or you could have unique marketing (which you should do anyway). There are a number of ways to make any business unique… even in industries that have been around forever.

Have a unique voice and personality

You can make the experience with your business unique by injecting a little personality and fun into it. If you visit a small business website they almost always try to look bigger than they are. They never mention the owner and like to tell you “we do this” even if there’s only one person involved.

I think this is a mistake and you – as a business owner – should let your unique voice speak through the business. People don’t buy from businesses – they buy from people – so you shouldn’t be hiding your personality away. Customers want to know they can ring up and there’s a real person on the line… and preferably not one in a call centre in India.

My personal example of uniqueness

There are heaps of people that know about marketing in New Zealand. There’s one company that says a lot of the same things I talk about and have been doing it for over 10 years. The problem I see… their information is just so boring!

I love learning about marketing but I’m not going to force myself to read a book that puts me to sleep… even if it has valuable lessons. So I bring my unique voice and personality to this blog and my writing. I want you to enjoy learning about this stuff as much as I do and I hope it shows.

Just do something

Again – as I commented on my previous post – you don’t need to take your marketing too seriously. While there are millions of factors of why people buy and tiny little nuances in great marketing… does it really matter to your business?

If you go away and implement some form of Unique Sales Promise – even if you only get it 10% right – you’re going to be leaps and bounds in front of your competitors. You’ll be able to refine it over time but the important thing is to just get started.

Relax and have fun with it

Plus, I’ve learnt the hard way that trying too hard when it comes to marketing will make your results worse. It turns people off when you show that desperation of “buy now or the world will end!!!” that new marketers tend to have (not pointing fingers… I’ve been there too!).

The funny thing is the less you care about the sale, the easier it’ll come. All of my recent meetings with potential clients have come from them requesting to see me. And I use no fancy “closing techniques” either… it’s just a question of what we do next.

Take action now

Marketing is not difficult. It’s just finding people who want your solution and providing it for them. The biggest step is doing something.

There have been some key posts this week so just take some time on the weekend to write down some action steps for your business. At least come up with an idea of your Unique Sales Promise. Your business will thank you for it.