Here are four questions for you:
- Do you find it challenging to answer the question, "What's your Unique Selling Position (USP)?"
- Do you talk about the features of your product or service verses addressing the benefits by answering (before they ask) "So what's so good about that?"
- Do you discount your actions or accomplishments with statements like, "Oh that, it was nothing"?
- Do you believe it is vanity to think you are something special - that you have a talent or gift unique to you and no one else can do exactly what you do?
If you answered yes to any one of those questions - keep reading.
In business it's important to highlight those things that set you apart from others in your industry. In the past 30+ years I've worked with hundreds of individuals, in many different arenas, getting them to see how they are "unique".
I had a revealing dream wherein I was hanging out in an old shanty looking at photos of several of our female relatives and they were in full dress green Marine Corps uniforms. I remember thinking, I know this person and she hadn't been in the Marines, so I asked when she had enlisted. The person I was talking with answered me "she went in just a few years ago". Hmmm.
The problem was she was a grandmother. I woke up reviewing. In reality, none of my female relatives served in the military. Yet, there I was, going through these dream pictures looking at them as Corporals' and Sergeants' doing things that I, a Former Marine had done myself.
The dream was about the desire to discount what I do. The "oh that was nothing" statement when someone delivers a compliment. There have been times that I was extremely uncomfortable with the question "what makes you unique". Over the years I have realized that I was NOT unique in that "discomfort".
Often times in the discomfor of expressing our uniqueness we fall back to these template driven statements - the elevator speech, or Audio Business Card, that sounds like one of these:
"Hi I'm Jane/John Doe and I am a therapist / coach / chiropractor.."
OR
"Hi I'm Jane/John Doe and I paint houses / design websites / teach computer skills..."
OR
"Hi I'm Jane/John Doe and I sell health / skin care / home care products (by brand name if they feel the brand is a strong hook)..."
We then proceed to tell every feature our product provides. And even the slowest elevator isn't enough time to get...e v e r y t h i n g...in.
I know. I've done this too. In truth, our reaction is , "So what?" You provide "quality service", "excellent products" . . . and so do a thousand other people.
We still have avoided the key element - what makes YOU unique for promoting that product.
In Deepak Chopra's book, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, he writes that the 7th Spiritual Law is the "Law of Dharma". In short, that law says when you combine your unique talent with service to humanity you make full use of the Law of Dharma. Your actions, coming from a place of your unique talent(s) bring about wealth. This wealth is manifest in various ways including health, spirit, relationship, and financial.
My friend, Chellie Campbell, a well-known author on creating weath, could be classified as a Financial Coach. If you saw her as just that you'd miss the mark. Looking deeper into her USP, Chellie helps thousands with her unique, insightful and heartwarming approach to money, different than any other financial coach. She is abundantly successful today by being honest and totally "Chellie" down to her gold and jeweled tennis shoes, in addition to serving others with her "USP".
It is not vanity to know that you are special. It is not ego (Edging God Out) to move through life as if you are unique. Even Christ said "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Somehow, along the way, I like many others, massaged that statement into the idea that I am to abase myself. I must be sure that others see every good thing I do as a "work of God" and every bad thing I do as a result of my humanity or "humanness". I am not advocating the "glorification of man" just that we were told to let OUR light/work shine. In that simple act - God is glorified. It is in this "uniqueness" that we are all the same.
Spend some time today, tomorrow or as long as it takes, getting to know what makes you unique. What is it that you have to offer, from the inside out, that makes you different from everyone else?
When you do that first - all of the beauty and success you desire will be yours.
About the Author
Kira Wagner lives by embracing choices and getting results. Born to blind parents, she knows the only handicaps are those we place on ourselves. Co-Founder and President of Global Connections Networking learn more at
http://www.globalconnectionsnetworking.com and
http://www.yourfreedomguide.com.
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