*** Differentiate Or Die

In my book, Marketing Your Small Business For Big Profits, I talk about the importance of separating yourself from the pack. Finding your unique benefits and promoting them.

It is a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and it lets everyone know why they should use you over all the others that provide the same service or product.

There are many steps involved in creating your USP and then what do you do with it when you have it? Essentially you want to use it in some form in all of your marketing as well as use it to develop your 30 second commercial or your elevator speech. You know, that short and concise answer to everyones favorite question - "So what do you do?"

Last summer my daughter took a summer camp called "Business is Jammin", designed to teach children about entrepreneurialism. As my daughter was getting ready for her debut as a business women (she was 10 at the time), we were discussing prices for her jewelry. I mentioned that a kids bracelet could go for $3 and the necklace for $5. She suggested that if someone buys both they could get them for $7. I thought that was pretty smart for a 10 year old.

It's not new, it is the concept of the package deal or combo. MacDonalds has been doing it for years. That's why they don't ask you if you "want fries with that?" anymore. They have positioned everything conveniently in the combo or package.

I have mentioned this to some of my clients with service businesses. They should have a few ancillary services that they can offer people as a means of an upsell. Either when you are booking the original service or at the time of delivery, they should be asking if the client would like this other service and then tell them that if they get it at the time of the original service it is price X but as a stand alone it is price Y. (By the way, this works equally well with retail businesses in the form of product combos.)

Obviously price Y is significantly higher for two reasons:

1) to entice them to buy that service now vs. some other time

2) to discourage them from buying the service as a stand alone because that time could be better used doing the higher priced main service.

In the case of retail, if they put off buying the extra item now they may not return to purchase it from you later.

I have found that just by offering additional services it gives you an edge over some of the competition. It makes you look more professional, a one stop shop, more diversified. All this is based on perception, because when people are searching for a service provider the ancillary services usually are not at the forefront of their mind.

In some, perhaps many, cases they will choose you because you offer other services, but have no intention of buying the other services. They just feel more secure in using someone that appears to have more to offer.

The point here is two fold: the first being the obvious added revenue stream and secondly the perception that you are different than the competition because you offer these extra services.

Now maybe in your particular area, everyone does this and you have to offer them just to stay on the same playing field. In this case you could hire a person that does only these ancillary services and turn it into a significant revenue stream by having these services marketed as stand alone services at a higher price point. Each customer they serve will be left with your marketing material and it becomes an opportunity to cross-market your main high-end services and your lower priced ancillary services.

If you don't currently offer extra services your unique pitch might be that you specialize in one service only. That might work for you, but at the same time I encourage you to at least consider adding some other services just from the marketing angle.

The idea here is to get you thinking about how your business is different and unique from all the others.

To your success!