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Crafting Your Unique Selling Proposition

Especially as entrepreneurs one of the things that really sets us apart from some of the other bigger brands is that we have a story and people are buying our products and writing about us because they can relate to our story and our story fits somehow into their story right that's that's what separates us from you know wal mart or target or some of the other brands that we're trying some of us are trying to compete with so this session it's one of my favorites we're going to be talking about how to craft your story how to shared with the media so that they're actually interested in you in order to feature you and on their pages are on their websites s o is everyone feeling good about that how are you guys doing ready yeah I'm sure all of you have stories right? Okay s so here are a couple of things you need to consider you need to consider your story and then we're going to talk about your businesses story so think about things like what motivates you you know and who are you? What do...

you like to dio and what inspires you? I know when I I started my still so business and my t shirt business, one of the things that I would always share is why I'm doing this you know what inspires me to do my soaps? I know for myself, if you go on my about page, you'll see my story as to why I started this business and believe it or not on your web site if you don't haven't about paige you actually should make that a priority put it up there because it's actually the second most visited page on a site often times right after your home page so what happens is people come to your site, they look around a little bit and then they want to find out more about you and your products and your story to see if there's a fit there to see if they want to buy from yourself they come to your home page then they click on the about paige and this is where it your chance to share your story but what's interesting about this page is that it's definitely your story but it's more about how your story fits into their story so when someone lands on this page, it shouldn't be something like I started this business because I was inspired by you know my mom or my kids inspire me or I saw a beautiful drawing that inspired me so you can get to that later but the most important part is to talk about how your story confed into their story, so for example, if you go to launch, grow joy dot com and click on the about page, it starts off with something like you know if you are an entrepreneur that is looking to get your products in the media and to really grow your brand you're in the right place so I'm talking to them directly even though it's my about page and it's about me and I do get to why I'm doing this and what inspires me and and why I'm here but most of it is you know, how does it relate to you how can it help you and one way to know that you're doing that really well is if you're using the word you or you're a lot so when some woman's honor your bowel page the first paragraph should be all about them with you using the words u s so it's like you're talking to them you're addressing them directly and that automatically captures their attention it gets them hooked it makes them more interested t really figure out how you could help them or how you could enhance their lives or provide them with a better product depending on what it is that you are doing so I wanted to really think about all of these questions and think about your about paige and how that's kind of how you're going toe after this session you're going to go home work on your about page to make sure that it shares first and foremost how your story could relate to all of your customers and all of your clients and then after that, I only believe it or not, the press reads this page as well, and I've had price mentions that have written about my soaps and they get a lot of the information turn on the soaps from what's on my about page so everyone reads that page and it's, what helps you to stand apart so there's your story and then there's your businesses story so things like, why did you start your business? What does your business dio? How is it different from what are some of the other businesses out there that might be similar to yours? And why this and why now? So I know when I first started my t shirt business, I was really self conscious about putting my story out there. It was the first official online business that I had started, and I thought, well, you know, why would anybody want to know this? You know, who cares? I just have a product if they like it, they'll buy it if they don't like it, they're not going to buy it. So at first when I launched, I had no story up there, I just, you know, said really generic things like the t shirts are made from organic cotton and we care about the environment, and that was pretty much it's it was really basic, really simple and then I realized you know as I was visiting other pages and looking for marketing information and trying to really make sure that I was doing this right I realize that your story really matters in terms of why people buy for me so I decided to go beyond my comfort zone and put my story up there as to why I started excuse me my t shirt business so I put it up there was like oh my god okay what's gonna happen now and interestingly enough I would start getting e mails from people that said oh my god thank you so much for doing this I could totally relate to this you know I just bought five t shirts for my mom and her friend or thank you so much for sharing your inspiring story this is great I love what are you doing and I love your brand so it allowed people to sort of communicate with you without you actually speaking with them face to face because you were addressing good by using the word you and you were talking directly to them and I saw interestingly enough that my sail started to increase to when I was writing my story and sharing with other people there too so I want you to really start thinking about your story and I know as entrepreneurs we all have those stories you know and sometimes I have different reasons for starting my businesses and depending on where I am sometimes I'll talk about this reason but not exactly you know, not necessarily the other reason that I started so again it depends we all have really a lot of stories so um knowing and I'm okay so how does this relate to publicity so knowing what your personal story is and what your business story is and how they fit into the media landscape whether or not they're newsworthy is the secret to your publicity success so I know I've said a lot of other secrets before and there's more than one secret but this is another one of them then I want you guys to all think about and all keep in mind as you are reaching out to the media so basically what happens when you are reaching out to the media? Yes they want to know about the product but if you look at what they actually published and I'll give you some examples here they all have a story behind them they don't just say, you know, organic cotton t shirt eight ninety nine or something like that they'll tell the story a little bit of the story behind it because their readers love stories and I've heard this before you know that people buy stories, not products and yesterday right they are buying the product but it's really how the story that they tell themselves in their mind as to how the product is going to be able to help them or the service and how it's going to be able to help them so yes they're buying the product and paying for it but it's really all about how that product is going to relate to their own story so stories are important with everything you do in your business including publicity and the media has a story you have a story they write about your story their readers love story so I can stress enough how important your story is going to be if you really want publicity so if you were afraid of telling your story you know and if you're thinking well maybe I don't want to be public or maybe I'm too shy to tell my story or you know or you know whatever reason you have for not telling your story if you don't want toby personal then you can tell your businesses story so think about why you started the business and you can share that as opposed to your own personal story and details about you but just think about the importance of story whether your story your businesses story or both yes robin you had a question and the importance of restraint saying the importance of than about paige bit what about the importance of oven image your picture on the about page how do you feel about that? Yes I feel like everyone should have their picture on there about paige even if you sell your product or even if you sell a product or a service, you should have a picture even better is a video of you talking and this is something that's on my to do list to add to my own website as well, but video is even better than a picture because you really can't engage people right away, but if you don't want to do a video or maybe you want to get to you later then definitely have a picture of you there as well and I have to say it was a really strange when I first put my picture up there and, um, you know, hundreds or thousands of people coming to my site with my picture there, but then you sort of get used to it. And now if you google my name there's tons of pictures and photos and videos and it's sort of part of the game, right, that one thing that's really different that's a working today than maybe wasn't part of this whole internet thing five years ago or ten years ago, I think there was a lot more privacy and people really wanting to hold onto that privacy on dh now that's totally changed the more out there you can be, the more people can relate to you, the more they trust you and the more likely they are to buy your prada and services so thank you for asking that it's real that the cia and people you know, people could relate when I shared my story about why I started my t shirt business you know, it was really personal story and I sometimes I go back and forth and I don't have the business now anymore but when I had it I would change my story just to see if anything happens you know? And if people react I mean it was still the same story but I would just focus on different parts of it that I was sharing or not sharing on every single time I would get people just reacting or writing back to me saying, you know, I console relates to this thank you so much so again it put puts that human touch human element that you don't otherwise get online and you don't definitely don't get that when you go teo walmart dot com or target dot com and you know not to bash those two businesses because they do a lot of great things but it's what separates you and why you're an entrepreneur and not a he huge corporation on and that's the reason people are going to buy from you as well so let's talk about how to craft your story there's two things that I want you to think about the first one is your unique selling proposition and I know some of you I have heard this I'm curious to know how many of you have heard this term unique selling proposition right? And you're thinking, oh god another thing I have to think about something else I have to write when I already have a million other things on my plate right? Who couldn't relate to that yeah, I know I've done that too but it's really important and once you write it you're going to see how that is an aspect of every part of your business it's going to be an aspect when you reach out to stores when you reach out to bloggers when you are reaching two magazines they all want to know what makes you different and this is what your unique selling proposition is and lastly is the features and benefits so each product has features and each product also has benefits and we're going to talk about how does our what those are how you know you know is this a feature? Is this a benefit? So that way you can really start thinking about how does this fit into my business and more importantly, how does it fit into the whole publicity landscape? So let's talk about everyone's favorite thing your unique selling proposition so this is the factor or consideration presented by the cellar which is you as a business owner as the reason that one product or service is different from and better than the competition and I got this definition definition from entrepreneur dot com there's a lot of different places where you can get definitions but it's pretty much the same, but what I want you to take away from this is that your unique selling proposition, it's one of the most important decisions that you can make about your business and it's what your business stands for it's your why it's your story it's your businesses story and no one else is gonna have the same exact story that you do. You know, maybe dan, you started your business for a different reason than anna and everyone has a story. Everyone has a different story and no two stories are like people come to your side and they couldn't relate to your story, then they're going to be your customers. So that's, why it's so important to share it and to really know what your business stands for? And I'm going to give you some really great examples of unique selling proposition in a second. But I wanted to talk a little bit too, about what a unique selling proposition is not because I know a lot of times people think, oh, you know, they asked me well under is that my slogan? Is that my tagline? Is that my mission statement? You know it should that be part of my sales pitch and it's not all of the it's not any of these but it's all of these s o your unique selling proposition is goingto go over into your slogan it could be part of your mission statement it could be part of your tag line or it could even be part of your sales pitch or media pitch but it's not just what it's not just your slogan, everything that your company stands for and what makes you different I know with myself company you know it's not just a bar of soap it's, handmade self and yes, there's a ton of other people that make handmade soaps. So what else can I do to make myself different? Well, there's a word stamped on each soap not many people have that, you know, on their soaps and I also plant a tree for every soap that I sell. So all of these things that I'm doing differently then might want my competitors are doing make me stand out. So if you look at my media mentions, you're going to see that almost every time they say you know the soaps are handmade and the trees planted for every soap that that they sell so think about how you could make yourself unique you know, if you have jewelry, what is going to make it stand out? Do you give back somehow? Do you employ maybe women that are out of the workforce and have them as part of your staff you know, think about what makes you different why and then convey that through all of your marketing materials whether it's your slogan and your mission statement you're about page basically anywhere people don't come in contact with you it should be a parent what your unique selling proposition is it's making sense for everyone okay when we're speaking about companies especially being, you know, smaller business owners compared to the big corporations what's your feeling on using I or we in sort of the terminology sometimes you want to sound a bit more official so we as a company you know where that rather than saying I you know you're just one person what do you think about that? Yeah, I think that's such a good question and I've actually done both when I first started my business and it's just me I'm not going to pretend that I'm this huge company with, you know, fifty people on staff, so I'll write a love my email saying I you know and sincerely in my name but then once I sometimes you know have an assistant or I'll have a fulfillment house and I have sales reps and at that point it's not just really just me anymore, so I'll say we although sometimes like when I pitched the press outside I'll say I you know, because I want them to know that this is my company this is me that's pitching and I'm going to be different from a big brand of soap that they might be hearing from so I think it just depends when you're at I don't think there's anything wrong with just saying you if it's just you I don't think it's going to deter people from writing about you I think maybe that might have been the case a long time ago, but I think again a lot of things have changed there's a ton of people starting businesses the media knows this everyone knows this on it's totally fine to just be you if it's just you and but again, whatever you're comfortable with and whatever works for you, I think it's totally fine because I see that as an advantage to where yes, we could be much more personal to our clients and show them you know how how much we respect them compared to, you know, a bigger corporation that has millions of people we can kind of give that individual touch and that's sort of an advantage is our into the u s yes, yeah, I totally agree, and again that you're right that's one of the things that's going to make it different is that you are behind this company, you know you're the designer and no one else like that flower that you have, you can buy anywhere else, because it's you. I really do think that there's definitely a shift from this mass produced items that we buy to, like, more personalized, more handmade, more unique things on the media is all about unique and your unique, and they're going to love that. So, yeah, I'm so glad you asked that, yeah.