Planning With A Heart

What is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? (Also called a UVP—Unique Value Proposition.)

This is very closely related to the last blog I wrote about scoping out your competition. It’s also akin to the “elevator speech.”

Here’s the game: When someone asks you, “What do you do?” you want to have a ready answer that succinctly tells them the essence of your offer (product or service) and gets them to engage in a conversation.

Your USP is also a way to establish brand identity. For example, “Just Do It!” (Nike) or “When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight.” (Fedex) It’s the reason some customers will buy from you and nobody else.

Here’s a little history from wikipedia.org:

The Unique Selling Proposition (also Unique Selling Point or USP) is a marketing concept that was first proposed as a theory to explain a pattern among successful advertising campaigns of the early 1940s. It states that such campaigns made unique propositions to the customer and that this convinced them to switch brands. The term was invented by Rosser Reeves of Ted Bates & Company. Today the term is used in other fields or just casually to refer to any aspect of an object that differentiates it from similar objects.

According to Scott Sedwick of Hyperformance Media (http://www.hyperformancemedia.com/USP.htm)

The task of coming up with a USP can sometimes be tough. But every company needs to do this, it sets you apart from your competitors . . . it is one or more reasons why prospects should work with you, or buy from you, or do business with you, instead of your competitors, period.

If you’re struggling to come up with your USP, here’s a suggestion. Sit down with your team and brainstorm. Write down all the characteristics of your buyers that you can think of. Now use that list to identify the core problem that your product or service satisfies for these buyers. Now write a short sentence or phrase expressing how your solution solves that problem. Voilà! USP!

A lot of times, when someone starts a business, they think they are so unique that they have no competition. Wrong answer!

Here’s a clue:

One of the most important things you must do for your business is figure out what the conventional business model is in your industry. By business model, I mean, how does anyone make money, and hopefully profit, from doing what you do?

If you own a bakery, for example, figure out how other bakeries make money selling bread. What are the costs? What price do they sell at? How much profit is normal in the bakery business?

When I was a counselor for SCORE, I always recommended that people considering starting a business should go and interview the five most successful people in their area who ran similar businesses.

If your business does not market locally, use the internet. Find business models, or even business plans, for a typical business in your industry. Put together a profile of the competition.

When defining competition, it is sometimes not enough to look at businesses selling the same product. A key question to ask is, who else is competing for the time and dollars of your target market. For example, Starbucks caters to the young, working professional. What are their alternatives to visiting Starbucks? They could go to another coffee shop. They could go to a juice bar. They could meet in a restaurant. They could skip coffee altogether and switch to designer water!

Almost every industry has an association. This is a great source of information about the industry, and often has already done the competitive analysis.

If you are going for outside investors to help start your business (or even if you aren’t,) you should know their key concerns. One of the questions they will ask you is how you will make money in your business, faster, smarter, better than anyone else?

Here’s a saying to think about:

“Good artists borrow. Great artists steal!”

I just made this video for you to learn more about the creation process – how we get from our ideas to the reality of “open for business.”

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Happy creating!

Every business, indeed, every thing, that exists on this planet, started as an idea.

I had an idea just the other day. The trouble is, most people don’t act on their ideas and they remain just that – ideas.

Here’s a clue. I believe, that if you have an idea to do something it is because you are uniquely qualified to bring that idea to fruition. For some of you, that may be a radical thought. You immediately start putting yourself down and saying, ‘not me, there’s nothing special about me.’

Oh, but there is. There’s something special about each of us. I believe all of us were put on this planet to learn about how to create on the physical plane.

If you look at the world today, most people are engaged in some kind of business (commerce, trade, barter, exchange, production, craft, cultivation, etc.) for the majority of their working hours. (How we got here and why that’s so is another story.)

Anyhow, the process of creation starts with ideas!

If you’ve seen, or read, The Secret, you know something about this process already.

So let’s explore this more deeply. What are ideas and where do they come from?

I was talking to someone the other day, and I mentioned that from the “discovery” (invention?) of the first “tool” (was it a rock or a stick?), mankind has been continually improving on technology to make our lives easier, more enjoyable, more fulfilling.

So one source of ideas is what already exists, and where there’s a need to fill.

Another place where people get business ideas from is things they already love to do. I’m a great cook. People are always telling me I should open a restaurant. (I also think I could do stand-up comedy.)

If you’re thinking about a business idea, one of the first things I tell my clients is go interview five people in your community who own the most successful businesses doing what you want to do. Learn from them. Learn what they love, learn the pitfalls, learn the process. Get help! Get mentored!

The most important thing about exploring your idea (and by the way, that is taking action!) is to flesh it out as fully as possible before you invest a lot of money. Learning the pitfalls, challenges, processes, as well as the profitability can save you a lot of heartache (and money) later on.

One of the first things investors will ask you is, “how can you do your business faster, better, smarter than anyone else.”

Once you have your idea fully fleshed out, you’re pretty far along in writing a business plan!

Now you can start market testing, and getting real-time feedback about your potential success. (More about this in a future blog.)

However, there’s also a big psychological component you must deal with.

Anytime anyone starts something new, they are outside of their comfort zone, and all of their fears (of the unknown, of failure, etc.) come rushing at them and try to stop them. These must also be dealt with.

The Planning With A Heart™ process helps you address these essential steps to success as well.

Take a moment to click on the link to get your Free “Entrepreneur Quiz” to discover if you have the mind set it takes to start your own successful business.

Ideas Blossom into successful Businesses

“Why do I need a mission statement?” you ask.

Glad you did.

What is a mission statement anyway? Is it some long, flowery explanation of why you’re doing what you’re doing in the first place? Is it meant to impress your shareholders, investors, partners and employees? Is it something you “have to do” but have no idea why?

That’s how people often think of a mission statement.

Man, this is going to be hard work! If only there were some magic wand I could wave over the whole thing and just get it done! After all, I’m an entrepreneur, not a business plan writer.

Hold on here, there actually is an easy way, and I’m going to give it to you in just a moment. But first (but first… the commercial announcement.) No, not really, just kidding…

So let’s get serious here – what is a mission statement?

In succinct terms, a mission statement clearly explains your “reason for being.” It is short (yes, that’s right, I said short!), flexible and distinctive.

Short is self explanatory—it should be easy for people to remember.

Flexible, because a mission is something you never completely fulfill, however, as time goes by, you may have to restate it in terms that reflect current market conditions. For example, Otis Elevators original mission (in the 1850s) was about lifting people. Today, it is known as the world’s largest manufacturer and maintainer of people-moving products including elevators, escalators and moving walkways.

“Distinctive” immediately sets you apart from the competition and lets people know who you are and what you stand for, like Apple’s “Think Different” is all about design and creativity and the user experience.

Here’s an exercise suggested by Guy Kawasaki in his 1991 book Marketplace Evangelism. It’s about how to write an effective mission statement. If you were standing on a street corner, waving a flag, rallying people to your cause, what would it say on the flag?

Now this may seem like more mumbo jumbo to you, but if you’ve done the visioning exercise I suggested in the last blog, then you’ve already tapped into your desired future, seen, in complete detail, what it is you want to create, and have captured a lot of the “felt sense” of that reality. Now, all you have to do is bring that vision back into the present and put it in words.

There’s an interesting phenomenon about your brain and how it works here. It’s been proven over and over that if you allow your creative right brain to have its way with images, symbols, clusters of thought, free association, felt sense, then at some point in this inherently creative process the synapses get crossed through the corpus callosum and your left brain (full of language and logic) kicks in and you’ll get a coherent sentence in words that usually needs very little polishing to be turned into a mission statement.

Try it! You’ll like it!

If you are finding these exercises helpful, and know a friend who wants to start a new business, link them up to this web site. They’ll thank you for helping them get on a path to a successful business plan.

You may think that words like “planning” and “vision” shouldn’t be used in the same sentence.
“Planning” means logical, linear, plodding detail to most people. “Vision” implies something ethereal, other worldly, far-reaching, and far away. To me, they are two sides of the same coin.

What links them together is the word “intention.” Your “intention” is your desire/commitment to achieve the fulfillment of your vision. Planning indicates the necessary steps and sequence of steps you must take along the way.

Vision is not something that is just given to a few people. It is something that each of us can have. It must be sought after, elicited, brought forth. If you are building a company with a team, vision is something that must be shared. Often different people have different parts of the puzzle, and the whole picture emerges only after all the pieces are shared.

Have you ever heard the expression “fake it till you make it”?

When you have a vision of where you want to be—what it looks like, feels like, smells like when your business is completely successful, and you start acting like it already is, miraculous things start to happen. You begin to attract the resources, people and opportunities that move you in the direction of your goal.

Another thing about starting with vision—it is physiologically easier for your brain to “remember” than to create from nothing. If you tap into your higher self/future wisdom and capture as much detail as possible and then “remember” how you got there, you will uncover not only the details of your compelling vision, but also the things you absolutely “know” and the aspects of your business where there are blanks or blind spots that you need to fill in. You can then create your game plan of research, product development, marketing, sales and financing to achieve the fulfillment of your vision.

There are any number of processes to assist you in developing your vision. The important thing is to create a concrete representation of your vision, usually with images, and often in words. Your subconscious mind thinks in images and symbols and will assist you in fulfilling your vision.

Finally, vision is what pulls you toward your goal, compels you to take action, keeps you motivated and inspired. People “just want to be inspired. “ (Jerry Maguire, 1996)

Lots of people can write business plans, but what makes a business plan a good one?

Fundamentally, a good (or great) plan is one that fulfills it’s purpose. But that’s kind of begging the question.

So, a better question is, “What is the purpose of a business plan?”

I’m assuming that you’re writing a plan for investors. (Most people are, whether it’s their team, themselves, or outside funders.) Even if you’re not writing a plan for money, the answer is the same.

A good business plan answers three fundamental questions:

1. How does anyone make money in your industry?

2. How will you make money better, faster, smarter than anyone else?

3. WIIFM? (What’s In It For Me?—that is, usually, the investor).

It’s amazing to me how many business owners I’ve talked to who can’t answer any of the above!

First of all, what’s your business model?

What I mean by that is exactly how do you (a) generate revenue; (b) manage expenses; and (c) make a profit.

If you don’t know the answer to these questions, I highly recommend that you find the 5 most successful business owners in your industry in your community and go interview them.

“Success Leaves Clues”

Now that you’ve established the basic model, you need to figure out how you’re unique, different, sexier, more profitable, more efficient, create more bang for the buck.

You may have heard of your Unique Selling Proposition. If you can get this down to a single sentence (or even 5-7 words) you’re focusing in on the razor’s edge.

Finally, you want to tune into my favorite radio station: WIIFM.

Even if you are the sole investor in your own business, you have to key into your motivation, which is usually linked closely to the big, splashy, sexy, profitable result you are seeking. Why are you doing this and what do you hope to gain?

If you are addressing investors, what is the gain you will be producing for them? Is it instant profits? Is it consistent cash flow? Is it a long-term equity play?

There are other aspects of your business that you must address to flesh out your business plan, but I want to suggest strongly that if you can answer the three questions I’m posing, you’ll have a great start toward creating something that is truly unique.

If you’re starting a business, you have to have a business plan.

There’s a famous saying, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”

To me, the greatest value of a business plan is the power it gives you to make every-day decisions. It’s like a compass, or a dowsing stick, that you follow in the direction of your goals.

People starting businesses write business plans for any number of reasons. If you’re going to a bank, or traditional lending source for funding, the lender is going to dictate to you that you must have a written plan. Besides a condition for funding, lenders use your business plan to track your progress and will re-evaluate your creditworthiness based on your ability to meet (and exceed) your revenue and profit projections.

If you’re seeking other kinds of funding, even the “friends and family” kind, a business plan serves as a marketing piece to your potential investors. It tells them what you are doing, your market uniqueness, and the reasons you need their funds. (And how you will be able to repay them.)

Even if you’re not seeking funding, a business plan is a great marketing tool. You may want to build a team, attract a board of directors, even woo major customers or suppliers. Your business plan (part or all) can be used to attract these people to you, let them know you are serious, organized and have thought through all the potential obstacles you may encounter.

It’s often said that entrepreneurs are natural risk takers. I disagree. Successful entrepreneurs are naturally risk averse, and take only calculated risks where they have researched the marketplace opportunity thoroughly and have minimized their chances of failure in every way possible.

The greatest reason I can think of to write a business plan, whether you’re a new company or have been in business for ages, is to get clear on your goals and get organized for success.

People often get distracted.

Many entrepreneurs are always scouting the market for the next great opportunity. It’s easy to tend to want to explore everything, try everything, market to everybody. After all, doesn’t everyone need what you have to offer?

When you have a written, detailed, specific plan, with clearly stated goals, strategic actions, and measurable results, you have a metric to guide you.

If you stick to the plan, you will have a reason for saying “yes” or “no” to new opportunities and new niches that arise. You will be able to determine if you are on track, or off track.

Finally, a business plan is a blueprint.

It gives specific direction to the Universe, if you will, letting your higher self know exactly what you want so that in the invisible order of things, your desire can be fulfilled.

A lot of people start a business because they’re great a something (like cooking) and all their friends tell them they should start a business around it. Or, you’re an inventor, and you’ve got the next green energy product that will save the world, or the next software application that will change the way people communicate.

Suddenly, you’re thrust into making all kinds of decisions you never had to make before. What price to sell it at, how to market, how much it costs to get things going, how to hire people to help you run the business.

A business plan is a tool for getting all this organized and letting you make mistakes on paper rather than “in the field.”

A business plan is more than writing a report for your teacher or boss, or completing a document that will magically get you funded. A business plan is a blueprint. It is a detailed, specific map of your destination. It is a magnet to your compelling future.

It is not a picture of where you are now. It is not a description of how you are going to get there. Your business plan serves the primary function of helping you keep your eye on the goal, make decisions that will get you a step further toward that goal, and keep you from getting distracted when other opportunities pop up.

“The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same. It is for you to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster than for you to cast off your own limitations than for you to begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become, have, and do.” (Brian Tracy)

In sports, most coaches will emphasize the importance of visualizing the desired result—whether it is sinking the winning basket just before the buzzer sounds, hitting a home run, setting a new world speed record. These athletes know the importance of keeping their eye focused on nothing else and they have developed the discipline to practice, practice, practice.

In business, the successful entrepreneur does the same thing and uses many of the same tools. Since business has so many moving parts, the business plan helps to create a cohesive vision so that everyone can coordinate their individual results.

Finally, if you are raising capital, or seeking a business loan, your business plan is a marketing tool to your investors or lenders, explaining to them why they should invest in your company and what’s in it for them.

Have you ever thought about starting your own business? Lots of people have, but fewer actually do so.

Perhaps you were an entrepreneur from the get-go. As a child, you had a paper route, sold stuff door-to-door, mowed lawns, washed cars, baby sat for your neighbors. As you grew older, you were encouraged to, “got to school, get a good education, get a job.” Maybe your entrepreneurial aspirations hadn’t gelled yet, so you followed the normal course.

Now, perhaps, you’re at a point in your life where it’s time to do something different.

According to the most current BLS information, the unemployment rate has increased to 9.9% nationwide in April, 2010, meaning that approximately 15.3 million people who would like to work are unable to find jobs. An additional 9.2 million people are working part time because their hours were cut back or they were unable to find full-time work. Finally, there are 1.2 million “discouraged” workers who have ceased looking for a job altogether.

Here is some equally interesting data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Of the approximately 23.3 million business firms that are currently active, approximately 17.6 million, or nearly three quarters have no payroll. (Translate, no employees.) According to the research, “Most are self-employed persons operating unincorporated businesses, and may or may not be the owner’s principal source of income.” That was in 2004, the most recent year data is available. Further, an additional 5.8 million businesses that did have payroll have under 100 employees – the SBA’s definition of small business.

Last bunch of numbers: new job formation. March, 2010 saw 162,000 new jobs created. Where did these jobs come from? Historically, the majority have been associated with new business start-ups and small business hiring.

So what does this mean for the ordinary mortal who is still struggling to make ends meet, or sitting at a desk day after day doing a job he or she hates.

If you’ve ever had a dream, a desire, to make a difference in the world, now is the time to do it! What I’m trying to show from all these statistics is that the efforts of a single individual, or a small group of individuals do make a difference.

I’m reminded of the famous quote from Marianne Williamson:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

(from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles)

I’ve told clients for years, that if you have an idea (for a business), then it has been given to you because you are the one who is uniquely qualified and positioned to bring it into fruition. So if ever you’ve dreamed, now is the time to get up off your chair and just do it!