490: An Important Question To Ask To Stand Out & Generate More Sales

Today’s podcast episode is inspired by a question I was asked during a training session earlier this week. “How do I know what my unique selling point is?” It’s a simple question, but one that is essential to building a successful marketing strategy. If you don’t know what your unique selling point is, chances are you are drowning in an already saturated industry. In this episode, I’m sharing my insights on how to identify your unique selling point, why it matters in your marketing efforts, and how to use it in designing your messaging to create connection with potential customers. Let’s dive in!

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

Because that will attract, you want to attract your ideal customer, but just as importantly, honestly, you wanna repel people. You wanna repel people who are not the right fit, because if you’re not doing that, you are not standing out. You are getting lost in the noise of all the other people who sound the same.

You are listening to the Not For Lazy Marketers Podcast, episode number 490.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are having a good week. Happy March. It’s our last month of the quarter. Can you believe that? I have been quick life update for you guys. I have become addicted to CrossFit. So if you know me and you’ve listened to this podcast, you can probably glean that I’m like an all in 110% personality. So a couple weeks ago we were coming home from Colorado and I had seen like a couple days before that I saw some random, literally random video on Instagram of a fit CrossFit athlete, like snatching a barbell. And for some reason it just caught my attention. Like, I’ve obviously seen that before and I’ve weight lifted for the last 10 years. And I was like, God, I wanna do that. Like, I wanna be that strong.

I wanna be that level of an athlete. So then it led to this whole conversation with my husband where I was like, what should I do? Like, should I get back into rowing? I used to do that in high school, like, what sport should I do? Like, I just wanna have something that is more than just going into my home gym every day. And so that led to me like researching that. I decided, okay, I’m gonna try CrossFit. So like four days after that conversation, I was trying CrossFit, I was in the classes, and then I joined a gym and now I’ve taken it to the next level because that’s obviously not enough. And my husband, for those of you guys who don’t know, he’s like one of the best personal trainers there is. He’s taken years and years of really deep, like a personal trainer is not even the right word for what he can do because his knowledge of the body and how your breathing impacts your weightlifting and your nervous system and all of these things, like he can cure people’s injuries.

Like he’s incredible. So I was like, look, I’m gonna go to CrossFit three days a week, and then I also want you to write me my own program and train me because next year I want to compete in the CrossFit opens. So that means I’m working out like two hours a day right now. And yeah, it’s been, I’m, I’m, I’m totally in love with it. I have weight lifted and kettle belled for like 10 years, done cantal training, but I haven’t done as much stuff with the barbell clean and jerk snatch and those things. And I’m, I’m totally hooked. Like I wake up excited to go to my CrossFit class. I’m such a weirdo. So anyways, that’s my life update. I am super excited. It feels really good to have something that feels like a hobby, I guess <laugh> because I don’t have a lot of those and just something to really work for.

 Prior to starting my business, health and fitness and, and wellness was my passion. I thought that was going to be my career. And I have always loved it and been so fascinated by it and like how far you can push the body and how you can optimize it. It’s why I wear all these wearables from the aura ring to the whoop and people make fun of me. Anyways, there’s my Emily Life update. So you guys will see on my Instagram, I’ve been doing like, what’s up today? You guys love that, like what I’m doing today and almost every day is CrossFit and every day is working out cuz I am, I’m gonna compete next year, let’s see if I really do it. But when I commit to something like I do not fail, like every single time I’ve started 75 hard I don’t fail.

Like I just don’t, I don’t fail. So, or I don’t quit. I do fail, but not in that way. All right, so today’s episode, today’s actual content. Let’s talk about CrossFit. Just kidding. Today’s actual content is inspired by a training I did this morning. So I did a bonus q and a after our workshop for everybody who came last week and went over their marketing strategy. We built a marketing strategy live, I did a bonus q and a after four people who bought the v i p ticket. And I’m inspired to do this podcast episode by a question I was asked that is so simple, but led to such a good discussion that I think is going to help you guys. So first of all with marketing and all that, I talk about marketing, you know, how much messaging drives everything we do. And when I say messaging, I sometimes don’t think people understand what I mean by it.

I mean that the way you connect and communicate with your audience and your leads, your potential customers and your customers. So that means the topics in your content that you create, the videos, you create, podcasts, whatever it means, your copy from your social media copy to your email copy to your landing page copy to your sales copy, the way we make someone feel when they interact with our brand and how we create that connection, which leads to them taking action, consuming what we put out or, and or potentially and hopefully purchasing. So messaging is one of, if not the most important parts of marketing, and that oftentimes takes people a long time to really master. But the reality is you’re never done mastering it. Like you’re constantly improving your messaging because your audience and the people that you’re targeting are also always shifting and changing in their life, what they’re going through, whether it’s from the different seasons of like literally the seasons of the year, right?

Like most people feel and go through things different at the end of the year than they do the beginning of the year, whether it’s the economy, whether it’s the state of an industry, whether it’s something that’s happened in the world, like their life is changing and so therefore your messaging needs to change. So the question I was asked was, how do I know what my unique selling point was? And that sounds like a really basic question that you may feel like, oh, I know that, or maybe you haven’t thought about it. But I thought the, what she asked, I was happy that she asked it. And also I feel like people don’t ask this because they might feel silly asking it. And so this was a really intimate setting and so I feel like she felt safe asking us. And so she’s like, you know, honestly like my unique, she’s like, I’m just good at what I do.

Like I’m just good at it. And she’s like, and I also think my competitors are probably pretty good at it. So I don’t know what makes me different. And I think that sometimes we may feel like that, especially maybe in an industry that is either there’s a lot of similarity and there’s a lot of saturation in it. This industry wasn’t actually specifically saturated, but I think that they’re all solving a similar problem in the industry. And so it feels like it was hard for her to see her unique selling point. So I said, first of all, my first question to her, which is a question I would ask you if you were going through this process, is if I was just like having coffee with you. And I was like, Hey, look, first of all, what do you do? And then you told me and I, and I asked you like, and why are you better?

Like why, what makes you different and why should I choose you over X, Y, Z? Like, what would your candid answer be? And when I asked that, she didn’t really have an answer, she’s like, I don’t know, like, I’m just good at what I do and I love what I do. And she’s like, but I also think my competitors are like that. And so then I said, okay, let’s take a step back and let’s understand why we even care about a unique selling point. Like what do you think having a unique selling point in your business of what makes you different as a brand? Why does that matter in your marketing? Why does the definition of that matter? We’re not just defining it. So you can fill out my workbook or you can fill out something I give you or somebody gives you just to have it.

There’s a reason why it matters. And that reason is it becomes the driving force behind everything in your messaging. So for example, if you have something unique about your brand, you are able to then take that into your social copy, your emails, everything you do. And so I asked her, what is maybe the way that you show up and deliver content that is different than other people in your industry? And it probably, like if you’re the founder of your company and you’re the the voice and the brand, it probably has to do some with your personality. And I said, you know, that is true for me. Like one of my unique selling points is how much we are no fluff straight to the point, straight to the numbers, get results type of an, of an agency. And that’s just in all of our values. And it’s because that’s how I am as a person.

That’s how I operate. And so that’s how I’ve built my company. And so one of our unique selling points is as a company that we are, is how fast we move. And that is also in my personality, how data driven we are, how action oriented we are, and how straight to the point we are just like, get shit done, right? Because that is my personality. You’re not going to see me be very fluffy and soft and gentle. Like I’m nice, but I’m firm. And so that is one of our unique selling points. And if you wanted an agency or a marketing person who’s gonna be really gentle and soft and like soft spoken and slower and and take your time through it, that’s not us. Like, we’re like, okay, you sign on, let’s get results, let’s go, let’s move you, get your shit done, we’re gonna get our shit done, right?

That’s like the experience that we create because that’s part of our unique selling point because that’s part of my values because that’s part of me and that’s how I built my company. So I started asking her like, what is it about you? Why would someone choose to follow your content? What are they attracted to over your competitors? And that’s when she kind of had a light bulb moment of, oh, well I, instead of taking things in this industry, which she’s in kind of like a taboo she’s a sex therapist, so she’s in a more like harder to talk about industry. And she’s like, instead of taking things more seriously and being, you know, more like a doctor and medically driven and all of these things, she’s like, I, I am those things. I know, you know, those side of things, but I make it really fun and I make it funny and I kind of like joke about things and I make it lighter.

And I said, okay, that is one of your unique selling points. The way that you support people in what you sell but also in your content is that you bring fun to it, you bring lightheartedness to it. And then the next piece we got to is I said, do you have some sort of process? Like, do you take people through, you know, first we do this, then we do this, then we look at this when you’re trying to help them get the end result. And she was like, yeah, I probably do. I haven’t defined it. So I think understanding, first of all that the reason why you want to define a unique selling point, and I think this goes deeper than just a unique selling point. This is also like brand values and brand voice and what makes you different and like how you’re going to be polarizing.

All of that drives your messaging and is important to remember because then when you get to writing copy or creating a podcast or doing something, you get to lean into that more. And you know, this is something too that I’ve been, my team has been encouraging me to do more of because I think I very much come off like my team was joking a couple weeks ago and they’re like, you’re like the female version of David Goggins. And I’m like, no, I’m not really, but I get what you’re saying. Like I am like, just cut the, the bs, get stuff done, show up, like no excuses. That is how I operate. And so I am gonna attract people who resonate with that. And those of you listening probably do resonate with that more than it’s okay, like, you know, I don’t even know what the messaging is around that, but like softer, like, I don’t wanna say excuses, it’s hard for me to relate to that side of things, but more like the softer side of things.

Like I, that’s not me. And so my team was like, Emily, we wanna see more of that and don’t be afraid of showing that and actually repelling the people who won’t resonate with that because that’s okay. And so I wanted to share this for a few reasons with you guys. One, could you define your unique selling point? Because I do think that’s really important, especially in an industry where you might have saturation. So you know, for me, like there’s a ton of saturation, there’s a ton of agencies out there, there’s a ton of marketing companies, a lot of them are really bad. And here is why we are better. We’re data driven. We’re really fast. We make decisions based off the numbers, whether that’s copy and creative or funnel strategy. We’re innovative, we’re striving to be better than yesterday. All of those things are unique selling point, which is also our brand values, which is worked into our content, our marketing, our messaging, and most importantly our delivery.

Cuz we have to see that through. So what is your unique selling point? One more thing to add that I said to her is oftentimes too, your background and your experience can be your unique selling point because the experience that she has as a sex therapist is going to be different than the other ones in the industry. And so what can she leverage that she can leverage in her marketing and in attracting people that others may not have but would be attracted to that? So that’s another one, you know, because for us, some of the clients that we’ve gotten to work with, and my background and my story becomes a unique selling point as well. So what is your unique selling point and what are your brand values? And, and this is something like that could have its whole other podcast episode because it took me so long to get this <laugh>.

And I think a lot of us write down values that like we Google or they sound really great and it’s like, no, your brand values need to be like you live by them. You live by them as a person, your team, if you have one lives by them, it’s obvious in your marketing, it’s obvious in your delivery. Like even without knowing them, someone could guess what those values are. And this took me until like, I think it was like a year and a half ago with these current values that we have that I really defined and we, you know, filter people through in our hiring for this. It’s obvious in our marketing, it’s obvious in our delivery, it’s obvious in our day-to-day team. And this helps attract the right person, the person who’s attracted to those values. So do you have that defined? Because that and understand the why behind why it’s important to define that is that’s going to drive everything you do in your marketing and your messaging.

And then the second thing to just think about is in this very crowded world of digital media and how many people are trying to gather the attention of your audience, whether they’re in your industry or not, attention is currency. And so how can you be a little bit more authentically you, a little bit more polarizing, going a little bit more deep with your beliefs and not being afraid really what people are going to think? And I think that’s been a huge growth opportunity for me, and I still have a ways to go with that, but I, I am a super direct person, but I also don’t want people to think badly of me. And so that ultimately waters down sometimes how I show up, especially if you’re not getting me directly, but maybe in content because I’m afraid of having someone think X, y, z when in reality, as long as I’m operating from within integrity constantly and within alignment of my values and of who I am, I don’t care what people think.

And I can’t tell you that right now I’m fully there, but I want to be there because I think operating from a place where you truly do not care what people think means that you get to show up fully as you, you don’t care about the negative comment on your ad. You don’t care about, you know, the, the email that you get or the criticism that you get from someone who has no idea what they’re saying because they’ve seen a microscopic component of your life and have made a judgment and a story about it. I’ve worked on that. I’m not fully there, but I think if you can work on that and get there as a content creator, it allows you to show up more authentically you and be more polarizing. And then also that will help your marketing because that will attract, you want to attract your ideal customer.

But just as importantly, honestly, you wanna repel people, you wanna repel people who are not the right fit because if you’re not doing that, you are not standing out. You are getting lost in the noise of all the other people who sound the same. So I thought that would be helpful for you guys to understand. Walk through it is such a simple concept. It’s something that I wouldn’t have talked about without this question and that’s why I’m so grateful for these trainings and being in the thick of things sometimes because you guys give me such inspiration for questions that I can answer. So, all right you guys. So we have a special series coming up that I wanna share next week on the podcast. If you listen to the podcast, I am going to be answering your questions. So you guys submitted a ton of questions. I’m still going through them, but I’m gonna be picking five of them, at least five of them. Some I might be able to work into within the episodes. But I’m gonna be picking five at least questions or more and answering them live on the podcast. So next week there’s gonna be some bonus extra episodes. Make sure you tune into those and I’ll talk to you guys next time.

Thanks for listening to the Not for Lazy Marketers podcast. If you love this episode and want deeper support with your marketing, head over to helpmystrategy.com to see how Hirsh Marketing can help take your marketing to the next level no matter where you’re at today. We help our clients scale faster than ever, find hidden leaks in their funnel, experiment with new creative marketing strategies, and help their business explode and be more profitable than they ever dreamed possible. Head over to helpmystrategy.com and see if you qualify for a free strategy audit with Team Hirsh.