Why Would A Customer Chose Your Product Or Service?
Why Would A Customer Chose Your Product Or Service?
Whenever I see a client that is thinking about starting up a business I always ask them the key question “what is going to be unique about your product or service?” or in other words “why would a customer chose your product or service?” You may also hear this referred to as what is your USP? (Unique Selling Point)
Typically the answer I get back is “my product will be the best”, “I will be the cheapest” and “I will give excellent customer service”. All very well but how can you really “be the best” if all your competitors are saying the same? You will also find that, if you are applying for funding, then your bank manager won’t be too impressed at these as your USPs.
So what do you need to do? Well you need to give it some real thought and think very carefully about what really will set your business apart from your competitors and make customers want to chose to do business with you. You need to be quite specific and think in some detail in order to get some clearly defined USPs. Some areas you may wish to consider to help you decide on some USPs include:
- Who are your suppliers?
- Where do you manufacture?
- How are they manufactured?
- How you price your product or service
- What finance options do you offer?
- Where you sell your product or service
- Who is your product or service targeted at?
- Are you on line only?
- What benefit will your product or service bring to your customer?
- What warranty will you offer?
- What will be the level of aftercare?
Clearly not all of these will be relevant to your business, but I hope I have stimulated you to devote more time and energy to answers to the fundamental question “why would a customer chose your product or service?”
Paul Stanford is a Director of 4Momentum http://www.4momentum.co.uk. 4Momentum provides business advisory services to small businesses, charities and social enterprises primarily in Sussex. Services include advice on starting a business, growing and transforming a business and selling a business. Clients typically contract 4Momentum for short periods of an hour to long term consultancy over many months for advice on subjects such as mentoring, business planning, sales and marketing advice, bidding for contracts, raising finance and general business advice. Paul is approved by the UK Government to deliver business advice on their behalf through Business Link and is a member of the Institute of Business Consultants. Visit his blog at http://www.paulstanford.co.uk/blog
Copyright 2008 Paul Stanford
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