Your USP Isn’t Your Product. It’s How You Sell

0:00Right. I want you to imagine, Zach, that you run a company that sells logistic software, right? Logistic or logistics? Logistics software. Got you. Logistics. Yeah, I'm imagining it. And I'm going to ask you, what is your USP? What do you think, if you weren't Zach Thompson, but you were the founder of a logistics company, what do you think would be the normal response that you might say? Fast, reliable, accurate service, of course. Wow. The way you said that actually even sounded good. I believe in you. um one thing we've been speaking about recently is this thing this usp this unique selling point what is your usp do you have a usp and i asked a guy the other day who um run at runs a lead generation agency i've been doing some work with and he was like oh we're the only one that does this i was like keep going and it felt like there wasn't really one there wasn't really a usp that you could take and say that is unique to you so one of the things that we talk about for businesses and for sales people is their unique their unique their unique selling point is actually them because no one can be you so if nobody can be you it means that nobody can sell like you so if i said to you that sometimes your unique selling point is the way you sell where do you go automatically What do you think of?

1:31Can I start in a weird way? I think we'll let the audience know what I'm talking about here. Please. So if you're someone listening to this and you think, I don't know if that's me, I don't know if that fits me. If you're in an industry or you sell something that you feel like it's a bit of a race to the bottom, it always comes down to price. That's a very clear sign that you're playing a game where your prospect sees what you do as all very similar. and I was having this uh conversation with a recruitment company I was doing some training with recently and I wrote down what they think is unique about them on the board so I wrote the recruitment name and I was like tell me all the bits that are unique about you wrote them down and I rubbed their name out at the top and I put their competitor's name instead and I said would it still be true and they said well yeah they claim it okay in the eyes of your potential client could it be true?

2:21Well, yeah. Okay. Then what we got into was actually what becomes memorable about you. Let's say if I've sat down with 10 different recruitment agencies, you start to go, well, who is that one who asked me that tough question or really understood that bit about us or they just went that little bit deeper, a little bit further, a little bit more curious, or it didn't feel like a money grab. So suddenly the differentiator, the unique selling point, becomes how you were actually sold to. in a commodity-based or saturated space. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the big thing is obviously this trust piece.

3:00So people buy from people they know, like, and trust. That's what they say. And I think it's your first interaction, your first impression. Have you established the trust from the first incident? And that can be your USP. I was doing some call coaching with someone the other day, and they're a recruitment company. and the call i was listening a lot of recruitment wow who would have thought they said something like how do you charge and the guy on the phone said it's 10 to 15 but we're always open to negotiate oh no okay right which if if your usp is the way you sell automatically that makes me think that you you just don't give a shit you're all about just getting clients on board you You actually don't do anything of value.

3:47You don't charge like you're setting yourself up in a way that people are going to think I can have a walk all over you or actually just it's so cheap that actually it might not be good. Do you mean when you hear that something so cheap, it makes me think, is this going to be good enough? So how do you if you're thinking about implementing your USP and the way that you sell being that unique selling point? What are some things that salespeople or businesses should start implementing? So the most obvious one to do is like very low cost is a very clear discovery that has a very clear expectation at the start.

4:24So what most sales processes don't have in them is these kind of clear off and on ramps. So what I mean by that is you start the discovery and you say, just to make it clear before we start, this is the on ramp. In this call, what do you want to get out of it? And they'll tell you a bit about what they want to get out of it. And if it doesn't quite align, you start to say, well, okay, this is a bit about what I need as well. Are you comfortable with that? Okay, we're all comfortable and there's this on-ramp part. If we don't understand each other by the end, or I don't really think we can help, are you comfortable then with us both just saying, no, this isn't a good fit?

5:00Yes, I am. So there's a clear like on and off-ramp at the start. But what most businesses do because of the way their forecasting works, shareholding, whatever, is they just want to get you into the cycle. I want to pitch you. And if you say no, just fucking discount, slam that discount down their throat until they buy. That's kind of what it works like, what it feels like. So your differentiator from the start can be like, oh, my discovery call feels incredibly low pressure. It's just like, I'm just going to basically spend my time seeing if I can understand you properly. And if I don't think we can help, I'll maybe give you some recommendations of what you can do and I'll be comfortable telling you now.

5:38So that's like a clear differentiate of what happens. The other thing that I think, particularly in software, people tend to do is they sell at the idea of perfect. And perfect, you're setting yourself up for disappointment because even if it's great or good, still somewhat disappointing. So actually letting people know what pain is involved in the process. You know, there is a bit of an onboarding that has to happen. There can be some teething issues with that. We'll probably need to work together quite a lot. It says two weeks can take up to three, depends on how slow things are on your end.

6:10like letting people know kind of the bad news will often soften the blow as they go but it's very refreshing from what other people in your space are probably trying to do with just it's going to be perfect it's amazing yes to all i can definitely solve all your problems um what do you think well i've been thinking about it a lot recently like that there's a there's point and i don't know if you feel like this we've not spoken about it but like maybe a bit of worry because i live in a an echo chamber of like we we feel like we sell the right way do you know i mean it's up for interpretation but the way that we do it is our unique selling point and i've got friends or people in the business that sell in a very similar way and when i think about like the way we cold call i see a lot of people doing it i've been doing a lot more training recently like working with a few different companies going in seeing the way they sell and the way they call and i go because my fear would be well if if your usp is the way that you do it differently and everyone's doing it the same way as us the methodology that we push well surely nothing's unique anymore but then i go oh actually no no one's doing it the ethical way no one's doing it the upfront way like i listen to calls where it's like everybody's just like i say everybody i mean the stuff i've been listening to and training recently it's like you're just trying to get stuff in the diary you're just trying to grab and i think like i worry sometimes like is everyone doing it in this unique way where they're trying to put the customer first i think there's a small percentage of people that are doing that and actually if you just like lower the pressure and it's like i'm just here to see if i can help you like it will be felt by the prospect side of things as well definitely definitely uh i've been jack frimson how is that thompson we set the task We should set a task.

7:56Do you have anything? Yeah, I do, actually. And it's an interesting one this week. Okay. The first person who can post a picture of someone in our team called Jack Hevingham on their LinkedIn. So post a picture of Jack Hevingham and say, he ain't heavy, he's my brother, and tag Jack Hevingham, me, and Jack. I'm going to give 500 pounds to. Wow. You have to be the first person to do it. You weren't there. We were onboarding a new client earlier. And I said something like, I was introducing Jack. And I said to him like, be careful with him. He's slippy like a frog. Did they laugh? Yeah, make it make sense.

8:41Anyway, right, there you go. Heavy ham. Go find it. Heavy. Our books are now open. If you need help getting in front of the right people, finding your dream customers or winning new business, we might be able to help. Why not outsource your sales to We Have A Meeting? Just go to wehaveameeting.com.