Ep 17. Stop looking for your unique selling point (do this instead)

[00:00:00] You’ve got the experience insights, maybe even a completely different way of looking at problems in your industry.

But instead of sharing any of it, you’re sitting there thinking, Hmm, but what makes me different from everyone else?

And while you are hunting for that elusive unique thing, your ideal clients are out there struggling with exactly the problems that you could solve, but they don’t know about it yet ’cause you haven’t told them.

If you’re new here, Hello and a very welcome to Quiet Confidence with myself, Anita Popat. I’m a marketing strategist for Introverts and today we’re gonna talk about why you need to stop looking for that unique selling point and do these things instead.

Before I start, let me tell you about one of my clients, P. who’s just finished Silent Storm.

She’s a personal stylist who helps women in their forties and fifties feel confident in their clothes again after major life changes, which honestly is such important work.

But when she first came to me, she hadn’t posted anything substantial in months.

She’d written so many versions of her bio and created mood boards for a brand that didn’t quite fit and she spent hours going through other personal stylist content, getting more and more convinced that everything had already been said. 

I’m sure you’ve been there before. “There’s nothing unique about me”, or “I’m just another stylist talking about confidence in finding your style”.

But while we were in our call, she had stories for days.

Things like helping one of the ladies start dating again because she helped her find clothes that really felt like her. And another woman who got promoted after learning to dress for the job that she wanted. Stories that would make her, ideal client think, oh my God, this is exactly what I need.

But P was so busy looking for her unique selling point that she forgot that she was already different.

So when we worked together, we honed in on a specific angle that she really enjoyed working on that other stylists weren’t really talking about.

And then we packaged it up into a unique offer name, which made her content different in itself because she was talking about something unique and new and the language she was using to describe her work was unique to her.

Once we figured out who we were talking to everything became easy because we created content from conversations that she was already having, whether that was from the market research calls, conversations from when she was out and about previous clients, and that made her feel really confident. And she attracted clients as a result.

And it’s the same [00:02:00] with your business. Your value isn’t in being the first person to ever think about something. It’s in being the right person for your particular audience.

So you’re probably thinking, what should I focus on instead then, Anita?

Well, I’m glad you asked. I’m gonna tell you.

Firstly, focus on your unique lens. Every single one of us sees the world through a slightly different lens, which is shaped by our experiences, our mistakes, our weird little observations about how things work.

So if you’re a leadership coach, for example, maybe you learned about leadership the hard way after having a really horrible boss who taught you everything not to do.

Or maybe you understand online business because you built yours around school pickups and nap times.

Or if you’re like me, maybe I get introverted entrepreneurs because I spent years forcing myself to be someone that I wasn’t.

And that lens, that’s yours. Nobody else has lived your exact combination of experiences or learned lessons in quite the same way that you have.

For me, going from corporate to running my own business completely changed how I see marketing. Like in corporate, I was used to working behind the scenes and letting the sales guys take all the credit while I kept my head down.

So when I got my own business, learning to put myself forward felt huge. But that now means that when I work with other people who’ve left the corporate world to start their own business, I get it in the way that someone who’s always had an online business might not.

So that’s not a unique selling point that I invented. It’s just my perspective shaped by my experience.

And I bet you’ve got loads of those too.

The second thing is to focus on your stories.

So the way you tell stories, the examples you choose, the moments that stick with you, these are inherently yours.

So two coaches could teach exactly the same framework, but the stories they tell to illustrate it will be completely different.

And the thing about stories is that they’re not just entertaining. They’re how people decide whether they’re gonna trust you or not. ‘ cause when someone shares a story about a mistake they made or a lesson they learned, you kind of get a sense of who they are beyond their expertise.

Remember people don’t just buy your knowledge. They buy your journey. They’re more interested in how you figured things out, what you learned the hard way, the mistakes that taught you the most, and that journey belongs to you. so don’t be afraid to share that.

Thirdly, and I dunno if people think about this enough, is focus on how you make people [00:04:00] feel. this is where us, as introverts, have a massive advantage. And I’m not just saying that because I am one.

We’re naturally good at creating safe spaces at listening properly, at making people feel understood rather than judged.

When people work with me, they tell me they feel like they can finally breathe and be themselves. Like they don’t have to pretend to be someone that they’re not. And that’s not because I’ve invented some like revolutionary approach to marketing.

It’s because I create an environment where people feel safe to be themselves, that naturally brings out the best of them and energizes them to show in their marketing.

So what feeling do you create for the people around you? That feeling is your differentiator.

And then finally focus on your values in action. So everyone says they value authenticity or integrity or whatever, but how do these values actually show up in how you work?

For me, protecting people’s energy is huge. So that shows up everywhere in how I structure my programs, in the fact that I’ll tell someone they’re not ready yet if I think they need to sort other things out first, or in the way that I encourage people to batch their content instead of showing up every single day.

All of these little things aren’t unique values, but the way I apply them is specific to how I work with people.

So pick something that you genuinely believe about your industry, or something that makes you a bit frustrated. And then share that belief through a story maybe a time that you learned the hard way, or a client breakthrough, or just an observation about the way you think things happen the way that they do.

And don’t worry about whether it’s been said before, because it probably has, but it hasn’t been said by you in your words, from your experience.

And remember, your ideal clients aren’t scrolling through social media looking for the person with the most never heard before approach.

They’re looking for someone who makes them think. “Finally, someone who gets it”.

And why can’t that be you?

Not because you’ve invented something brand new, but because you’re willing to share your genuine thoughts and experiences in a world full of people saying what they think they should say.

So stop looking for your unique selling point and start sharing your authentic point of view. And trust me, that’s where the real connection happens.

Until then, keep embracing your quite confidence so that you can make a loud impact with your work.

As always, thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next time.

 [00:06:00]