What Is a USP?

In the 1940's, Rosser Reeves wrote a classic article that taught marketers one of the most important lessons in business: You need a USP.

USP stands for "Unique Selling Proposition." In a way, it means, "What makes you different?" But the difference has to be meaningful to members of your target niche. It needs to show a strong benefit to your customers that is not offered by competitors. When you offer a strong benefit that is not offered by competitors, you create a new little cubicle in your customer's mind (to use an analogy from the "What Makes You Different?" 20 minute task). It's why a customer will buy from you instead of from a competitor.

FedEx didn't just decide to send things overnight. They decided to send things "when your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight." You need to look at your differences and select one--just one--that will really be important to the people who have the problem you want to solve because of the benefit it confers. (Nothing will stop you from making use of the other differences, too. But you need to choose what will become the label on your cubicle in your customers' minds.)

As an example, consider 20MinuteWebBusiness.com. What is its USP? What strong benefit sets it apart from its competitors? It's the fact that you can use it 20 minutes at a time. It breaks creating a web business into bite-size tasks that get you ahead in the tiny moments of each day that you eke out to build your business. It removes the overhead of figuring out what to do next.

Your 20 Minute Task

Spend the rest of your 20 minutes writing and re-writing the essence of your solution, focusing on the differences that provide benefits to your market niche. Try to get the statement into one sentence of 20 words or less.

Then, of course, file it in your "Competitor Intelligence" folder.