Get more customers with a USP...

Marketing your trade with a USP

A USP or Unique Selling Point (sometimes called a Unique Selling Proposition) is something you should have in your business, it creates attraction and it's possible that when your prospective customer is looking for your particular service, you may be the only company they call.

What a Unique Selling Point is not

A USP is certainly not a strapline like Gillettes 'The best a man can get' although it can be, a strapline is an attention grabber like one of my favourites from a plumber I know - 'If water runs through it, we do it'. Many people think Straplines and USPs are the same thing, however a USP is something much more powerful.

A USP is also not 'We turn up on time' or the famous 'No job too big, no job too small' or any of the other lines that are used by about every other trade.

If you have a line like this and it can apply to any other business or any other business could do it, then it's not unique.

'We will beat any quote' is also not a USP and is the quickest way to go out of business, please don't market your business on being the cheapest.

What is a Unique Selling Point?

A USP for your electrical, plumbing, building or other trade business is customer focused it should tell them why they should trust you, call you for a quote and use you, then potentially refer you. A USP is a great marketing tool to get more customers for your trade business. 

A lot of people when they look to use a trade have probably have never hired a tradesperson before and with all the horror stories on the TV programs and in the news there will be a certain amount of fear, like 'is my property going to get damaged', 'will they not do the job properly' or 'will they run off with my money?' 

You can alleviate this fear with a great USP - do this and as I've said you'll be the one to get that call. If you've got a great USP and you stick to it, you can even charge more because you'll be giving a better service and people pay more for a better service.

If you create a really great USP, you don't have to worry about your competitors using it, like they may do with a strapline, because they won't, they'll be too afraid to, well at least 80% of them anyway.

How to create a USP for your trade

When creating a Unique Selling Point, you need to focus on what your customer wants beyond the actual work that you would be doing for them. Think of the negative emotions that your potential customers will be experiencing and then create a USP that gives them the opposite emotion.

Giving a great guarantee is a great USP such as 'We'll do x or you'll get y' or 'Broken x?, Call us, we guarantee we'll have it working in 2 hours or you pay nothing'

Once you've created your USP make sure you add it to your business cards and other marketing for your trade, it should be something to shout about. You'll know you have an amazing USP when you tell people your USP and they say wow!

If you need help with your marketing and creating a great USP then get in touch.

To your Success

Paul Jennings