What’s your USP? Have you worked this out? Are you clearly articulating it at every point of contact with your customers? On business cards, websites, blogs, advertisements, on your windows, your signage, delivery vans, and your packaging and bags?

In tough economic trading, and most of us are agreed this is no picnic, some businesses will scrap and scrabble for any business they can get their hands on just to stay in the game.

You know when a business is in danger, when the business suddenly starts diversifying into products that have no relevance to their initial offering. You’ll see from my canine friend at the top of this post, that this can have disasterous connotations as customers struggle to decipher the mixed messages your business is sending out.

The danger of grabbing anything you can, is that you can lose sight of the distinctive benefits that your product or service delivers to your customers and you’ll end up being treated like a commodity and coming under severe price pressure. Any business that operates as a commodity is going to come under price pressure, that’s a given.

Your aim as the business owner, or champion must be to create a vision and personality for your business, something to communicate to your customers so that they understand the value of being part of your network and doing business with you. They literally are choosing you from all the other alternatives out there, so you must give them compelling reasons to make that choice.

Winning retailers clearly articulate the distinctive benefits they bring to their customers. Those who grasp the upside of the downturn and come out as winners are those who

* Ensure their offer is distinctive and that their customers value this distinctiveness, and don’t mind paying for it.

* Are clear and confident in articulating their distinctiveness of their business at every opportunity

* Say “no” to opportunities where their distinctiveness is not valued, or the products take their offering away from their USP

These challenging times are a real test of leadership and nerves! Whatever you do, don’t just wait and hope that things will get better. Now is the best time for you to show the clarity, focus, resilience, and persistence of a leader.

Take some time, get curious about what’s working and what’s just not. Get clear on what is your business’s USP and once you’re clear on this, get creative and shout about what makes your business distinctive.

By doing this, you create a better future for your business, for your employees, and of course, for you!

You can download our free e-book on USP’s from this website, just log in.
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