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!

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.

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.

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!

A lot of people I talk to today are still fearful about the economy.  While economic statistics indicate we’re out of the recession, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke forecasts a “moderate economic recovery.”  (Washington Post, April 14, 2010.)  Others are less optimistic, pointing to such factors as globalization, manufacturing obsolescence and even global warming to predict more coming chaos.

So what are America’s strengths? Why would NOW be a good time to start your own business? Why should you start a new business NOW?

I’ve said for a long time that Entrepreneurship will be one of the survival skills of the 21st century.  In 2010, we are uniquely poised to take advantage of our current situation.

In my generation (the Baby Boomers) we’re realized that there is no such thing as job security.  There isn’t even the security of retiring with a pension, and maybe not even retiring with Social Security.  Two questions arise for me from this.  One, why should I go to work for anyone else at all?  The other, when would now be a good time to start my own business?

Daniel Pink, former editor of Fast Company magazine wrote a book in 2002 called Free Agent Nation in which he documents the growing number of independently employed workers in the U.S. According to some of his numbers, fully one-third of the American workforce now operates as a free agent.  Included in this number are solo-preneurs, independent contractors, home-based business owners, network marketers, and small business owners.

With unemployment still hovering around 9.5%, (that’s over 15 million folks, folks!) and more people under-employed, or have just given up, there’s tremendous opportunity to do something useful with all this time on our hands.

If you’ve ever had a dream in your heart, have a hobby or an idea that you think you could make money at, now’s the time to start!

If you like this web site and are enjoying the information we are sharing here, please pass the web site address onto others so they can start Planning With A Heart™ also.

Why Planning With A Heart you might ask. It all began a long time ago.

I was teaching in Prescott, Arizona (in the mid-1990’s) and involved with the Episcopal church there. The church was overflowing its physical building and brought in an architect to talk to the board about building a new building. The architect was “innovative.” He had written a paper, called “Vision With Planning.” What he proposed was that after he got the new building built, he would then lead a visioning session with all the members of the congregation to “vision” what we might want to do with the new space.

I became incensed! I thought he had done it backwards. Vision first, then planning! I wrote a paper in response, called “Planning With Vision” which later became “Planning With A Heart”. That paper is now a chapter in the book.

“Without a vision, the people perish.” (PR 29:18)

This quote has been interpreted in many different ways. To me it means that there is some hunger in our soul, some need for inspiration, without which we don’t lead as full a life.

A friend of mine, Enrique Montiel, often says, “We all contribute. Some of us contribute while we’re still alive; some of us don’t contribute until after we’re dead.” If you think about it, wouldn’t you really rather contribute now?

To contribute means to exercise your God-given talents and abilities to create a unique expression of you. Many of us do that in the context of business. To create a business takes both vision and planning. Vision, to see the future as it already exists, to know how the world will be after your vision is fulfilled. Planning – the blueprinting of your idea in as much specific detail as possible, to map out the vision that you want to fulfill.

Planning With A Heart begins by helping you to uncover the vision of your heart. It takes you through the process of fleshing out the details of your idea to make it a viable business in today’s economy. It is filled with exercises and examples to help you along the way. It is a process, not a destination.