What IS Your USP?

This could be the most valuable BLOG Post for ClearPath Society Members, EVER…Please read it carefully. If a discussion with your team or partners (many of you have dentist partners in your multi-location, multi-doc practices) doesn’t ensue in short order about THIS very subject, then, how to activate it in your marketing, we’ve got problems…

Here goes:

USP: Unique Selling Proposition.

In short, what makes YOUR dental office better than anyone else’s? And, why should I, the consumer you are trying to woo and wow with postcards, FSIs, websites, etc., CARE?

Look at it like this: If I am new in town, WHY THE HECK should I choose your office and YOU over the other 27.5 choices available to me?

By now, unless you’re asleep at the TV, you’ve seen SWA’s (Southwest Airlines) AWESOME, industry-busting USP.

It’s pretty simple. “Bags fly FREE.”

This accomplishes several things.

First, it allows SWA to easily and effectively use the all-time most effective word in advertising: FREE.

Second, it so easily and vastly separates them from their so-called competition, that it’s virtually UNFAIR.

And, another thing: It gets them FREE press – a ton of free coverage from media because they are doing something NO ONE ELSE CAN OR WILL.

Third: and this is my favorite, they’re going against the industry norms and saying, essentially, “Hey Continental, Hey Alaska, HEY Delta, SCREW YOU!”

Fourth and final, and again, a favorite of mine: It’s a totally rebel/business anarchist approach. Look around, see what the industry is screwing up and pissing consumers off by doing and do the exact opposite.

Sir Richard Branson is also a genius at this. (Read his awesome books ASAP, ok?)

And, the winners of this amazingly effective and yet, very simple USP? The consumers and shareholders of SWA.

Your mission, dear ClearPath Members, if you choose to accept it: Develop a USP that will do the above three things for YOUR business.

Already, just typing this, I figured one out for SofTouch Dental (and I’ll work it over):

Whitening: forever FREE.

I’ll take the business anarchist position of: Why pay high prices for ineffective, OTC solutions (over-the-counter) when you can have professionally whitened teeth, at a dental office, at NO COST, ever.

Do you have the chutzpa to offer that? The “balls” as it were?

Share with me YOUR new USP. Best one wins $100 and I will also write and distribute, for FREE, an area-wide press release for your practice, on me, my dime, a $750 value. And, be sure to trademark it in your state; protect your assets. OK?

Here’s the link to SWA’s site promoting their USP.