What Makes Your Business Unique? Define Your UCD: Part 2 of 2

Welcome back – in Part One of Define Your Unique Core Differentiators we discussed what makes your business different and the need to communicate those UCDs.  In today’s blog we’ll discuss how to discover your UCDs and ensure that they are the core of your business.

Finding Your UCDs – Ask Yourself

What benefit does your business provide?

What key frustrations are you removing for your target customer/client?

What are you willing to go the extra mile on to differentiate yourself?

What is something that everyone in your industry is required to do, but no one articulates as a UCD?

Finding Your UCDs…Ask Your Team

The next step you need to take is to ask your team members what they think your key UCDs are.  You may be surprised at what you hear.  Often your team members have much more daily contact with customers, and really have a handle on their needs and frustrations and how to address them.

Finding Your UCDs…Have Someone Ask YOU!

If you and your team have difficulty finding something about your business that is truly unique, a very useful technique you can use it to sit down with someone you trust who does not work in your business, and have them interview you. It’s a good idea to record the interview, because you’ll probably come up with several UCDs without knowing it, as well as a wealth of great marketing copy that you can put to good use later.

Instead of asking, “what is unique about your business,” the interviewer should ask questions that dig deeper such as:

“Tell me what happens in your business every day…from
start to finish.”

“Why do you do it that way?”

“Why do you think people buy from you?”

Example:  Fast Food Chicken Restaurant

When asked about his UCDs, the business owner could not find anything that he did differently than any other fast food restaurant.  But when asked what happened in the business every day, he went on to explain that the team arrived at 5:00am to scrub the entire facility, and finished at 10:00pm because they did it again at closing time.  They did this because cleanliness is important to customers buying chicken. He also went on to say that it was important to be open early to take delivery of hundreds of fresh chickens every day from a local poultry
farm.  This was important because people like the taste of fresh chicken rather than frozen.  In addition, the local farm raised them without hormones resulting in 20% less fat content.  All these things were key concerns of his customers.  So the business was, in fact, doing things differently without realizing it. And that the things he was doing, while not visible, but would strike a cord with customers.    He went on to document these differences in his marketing activities.  Sales increased dramatically and repeat business soared.

Finding Your UCDs…Ask Your Customers

Asking your customers why they decided to buy from you can be helpful because your perception of why people buy from you and the experience they have doing it can be quite different from theirs.

“Why did you decide to purchase from us?”

“What differences did you notice between our business and other providers of the same product/service?”

“What were the top 3 things that mattered most to you when you were selecting which business to make your purchase from?”

“Were you happy with your experience purchasing from our business?”

“What can we do to improve the experience for you?”

Example:  Property Development Company

The company thought the major reasons new tenants would move into its townhouse complex was for the facilities (pool, play area, tennis court, security patrol), and thus used the facilities as the focus in their marketing effort.  However, the new occupancy rate was sluggish.  When the company asked the few tenants why they had moved there, they said it was because the
townhouses had 3 bedrooms, were new, and cost the same as older, smaller apartments in the area.  Since it wasn’t the facilities that potential tenants were looking for, promoting them wasn’t hitting their hot buttons.  When the company changed their advertising and placed those 3 considerations in the headline, the complex was fully occupied within 2 weeks, and had a waiting list.

After you add your team’s ideas, your interview responses, and your customer’s input to your UCD list, it’s time to look at each item on the list and ask the question:

“Is this true or not, and would my competitors say the same thing?”  Be honest!

Cross out anything that doesn’t really differentiate you, or doesn’t provide a customer benefit or address a frustration to finalize your UCD list.

Making Your UCDs The Core Of Your Business

Once you have established your UCDs, you must then make them a central focus of your business. Your products, services, and the way you operate should all be guided by
what you’ve promised in your UCD statements. And when you’re faced with a difficult business decision, you can go back to the “core” for guidance.

The final step after you’ve created your UCDs and integrated them into the business is to make them the focus of your marketing efforts. The mistake most businesses make is that they don’t include UCDs in their marketing; they focus on the “features” rather than the benefits, and
expect customers to buy just because they are in the marketplace and are saying, “Buy from us.”

Take charge of the situation, and make sure that everything you put into your advertising,
promotions, social media, signage, brochures, stationery, delivery vehicles, shopping bags, website, etc. clearly articulates exactly why you are unique and why potential clients
should buy from you.  If you don’t, they’ll  make their buying decision based on something else…something that might lead them elsewhere.

What Have We Learned?

Let’s review the key points we’ve talked about in this two part series on UCDs:

• Perception is the reality.  People buy based on the differences they perceive between competitors.
• You must make your business stand out by developing and communicating your Unique Core Differentiators.
• Unique Core Differentiators (UCDs) are those things that clearly articulate what makes you different, and target customers’ concerns, frustration and desires.
• There are three types of UCDs:  Actual, Created and Perceived.
• To find your own UCDs you need to talk to your team, have someone outside the business interview you, and get input from your customers.
• Once you’ve come up with your UCDs, you need to make sure they are the focus or “core” of your business.
• The final step is to ensure that all of your marketing efforts clearly articulate why you are unique and why customers
  should buy from you.