Your Unique Value Proposition

A unique value proposition (UVP) is what potential clients ‘perceive’ that you offer that they cannot get from another company. The word ‘perceive’ is important since people make most decisions on emotion and justify their decision with the facts that support it. If this were not true, there would essentially be only two companies in business in any market segment – the least expensive and the highest quality. In reality, there are numerous companies in a particular segment each carving out a share with ‘perceived’ advantages and value to the customer.

In this overcommunicated world you need a Unique Value Proposition (UVP) to catch the attention of prospective customers. If you are perceived the same as others, the only differentiation will be price. Basically, your UVP is the thing that sets you apart from the competition and speaks directly to a customer. A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis can be especially productive for new business owners and entrepreneurs who haven’t nailed down their UVP yet.

Your UVP can be something simple like you’re the only company in the area that provides overnight delivery. Or your UVP can be more detailed, like the story of how you started the business. For example, were you desperately seeking a specific product that no one else was producing? Chances are, you weren’t alone. But you’re the first to do something about it.

Strengths are things that your organization does particularly well, or in a way that may differentiate you from your competitors. Think about the advantages your organization has over other organizations. These might be the quality or performance of your staff, access to certain materials or technology, or a lower cost manufacturing process. It is only a strength if it brings you a clear advantage. For example, if all your competitors provide high-quality products, then a high-quality production process is not a strength in your market: it’s a cost of doing business. On the other hand, it can be a strength if competitors have not positioned themselves effectively in the market related to a particular attribute.

Your strengths are an integral part of your organization, so think about what makes it “tick.” What do you do better than anyone else? What values drive your business? What unique or lower-cost resources can you draw upon that others can’t? Identify and analyze your organization’s Unique Value Proposition (UVP). This can be defined as anything about your products, services or people that a potential customer perceives is a better offering than they expect to get from competition.

Trust can be a critical element in your UVP. If people trust what you are saying this can leverage your product or service. It should be noted that in this online world it is increasingly difficult to differentiate your product or service. If possible, you should strive to have face to face relationships. While products or services can be perceived as a commodity, people cannot. If you can build trust through a personal relationship, you have a good shot at having your UVP recognized.

You may not be the only one that could offer a particular value proposition, but you may be able to be the first one to position yourself in the mind of your customer as having it before anyone else does. Once you have identified your UVP, you need to reinforce the message in everything you do. If you achieve this properly others will be compared to you.

Many companies make the mistake of throwing as many features and benefits as they can at a customer hoping that one or more will catch their attention. A more effective strategy is to focus on the UVP that matters most to the customer. Often what you think is the most important feature of your product or service is not necessarily the most important one to your customer. This is why it is important to thoroughly understand your potential customers before launching your marketing program.

A rule of thumb in marketing is that the more features and benefits offered by your company and competition, the more likely you will be perceived as equal, and price becomes a more important factor (unless it is already). This is because customers don’t have the time to do a line-by-line comparative study of all the features and benefits and therefore just ensure that their key ‘perceived’ requirements are met and ignore the rest.

Once you understand your target customers, an effective way to make your UVP stand out is to clearly separate it from all the other features and benefits offered by your company and competition. You then essentially ‘park’ these features and benefits as the base for comparison and clearly position your UVP. An example would be:

 ‘Like all good providers of (the product or service) we offer (list all the important features that are important to your customer). What we offer (or provide) differently (or uniquely) is (your company UVP)’

Building Filters

There are three parties involved in a sale – you, your customer and your competitors. You cannot control or even influence what your competitors state about their company, products or services, your company, product or services or even the marketplace.

What you can do is influence how your customer interprets what competitors are saying. Even if any of this messaging by competition can affect the sale and is a misrepresentation of the facts or even false, it is usually not wise to call out the competitor by name. What you can do is build a filter in the mind of your prospect so that if the competition makes any of these false or exaggerated claims, the customer will identify them as such. Obviously, this is most effective face to face rather than by phone, email or internet. An example of this technique:

 ‘You may have heard (or read or been told) that (misrepresentation). In actual fact (true situation with credible 3^rd party evidence)’

If your customer believes what you say and has heard this misrepresentation before or hears it later, they hopefully likely will identify it as such. This can help built trust with this customer.

Bob Alsip

Over his long career Bob has held senior business development roles in both large corporations and SME in multiple industries including: medical devices and services, software development, environmental products & services and industrial & commercial products. After retirement he helped many organizations as both a consultant for his firm SoftAdvantage and
as a volunteer mentor. Bob is a graduate engineer.