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Sometimes marketing is just a case of saying the right thing at the right time. Here’s a technique that will spread the word about your company in just a few minutes.

How often have you been asked “what do you do?” or “what does your business do?” Want to know how to make a memorable impression when you answer this question?

Yes - then perfect your “elevator pitch”. This is so called because you should be able to describe what you business does in the few minutes that you spend in an elevator talking to your fellow travelers.

Here’s the recipe for your elevator pitch:

* It should last about 3 sentences max! (don’t want to bore people)

* It should explain what you or your company does

* There should be a small sales pitch in there!

* There should be a “hook” in there that begs for more questions.

Here’s ours….

“I’m the Biz Guru, I own two companies, one in the USA and one in the UK. We specialize in business strategy consultancy, training and book writing.”

Note the hook - I always get asked about the two companies and because I am a Brit - about the UK and my accent!

Try yours out with your friends. Hint if they fall asleep you need to revise it.

© Copyright 2006 Biz Guru LLC

Lee Lister, writes as The Biz Guru, for a number of web sites including her own sites http://www.BizGuru.us and http://www.clikks.com for all our informational products.

With over 20 year’s management and business consultancy experience with businesses large and small as well as being a serial entrepreneur, she now helps others set up, develop and market their businesses.

You might like to join our Clikks Ezine: - aimed at the small businesses - click or brick with a web site presence. We provide business strategy and marketing assistance and products. clikks_ezine@aweber.com

This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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Maybe you’ve heard these different marketing terms, maybe you haven’t. Either way, let me help to clarify the difference between them, because you should have all three if you want to market successfully. And knowing what they are may be your first step to accomplishing all three for your business.

Unique Selling Proposition

A unique selling proposition, sometimes referred to as a USP, is the one thing that is unique and valuable about your business, product or service? And it must be unique and valuable to your prospects or ideal clients, not just to you.

It may be an inherent attribute of your product or service (it’s the only blue widget available and blue is the color your ideal customers prefer) or it may be something you create. I created the USP for my business, 10stepmarketing.

There are many marketing training programs and educational products available. But there were none I could find that taught small business owners how to create and implement their own marketing plan using a simple, step-by-step, question-and-answer method.

So I created my marketing training program (name and all) to fill this void in the marketplace. And it became my “created” USP. It didn’t exist when I first started training 5 years ago I created it and built my business around it.

Your USP is an idea or a concept. It is not the exact words you feature in your marketing. You will however use it to write and create your marketing messages.

Single Message

This is what you say about your business, product or service when you market. It is the one key idea or message you include in all of your marketing. It may be very closely related to your USP, but it may not be exactly the same.

You will determine your single message AFTER you determine your USP. Additionally, look at your single message as the one thing you could tell your prospects to change their mindset about your product or service, from what they currently think to what you WANT them to think.

It is usually written in the form of a short statement or sentence. Its job is to take your prospects from what they think now to what you want them to think. Most likely you will NOT feature your single message in your marketing materials exactly as you have written it in your marketing plan.

The idea will be communicated, but you will very likely use different words in your actual marketing materials. For 10stepmarketing, my single message is “If you can answer 10 questions, you can successfully market your business.” (In my case, I turned my single message into a tagline because it was succinct, it communicated exactly what I wanted, and frankly, it just WORKED!)

Tagline

Your tagline is an actual line of marketing copy you write to sum up what you do, or what you want your prospects to know about your product or service, or a key benefit they will reap if they purchase. You will draw on your USP and your Single Message to help you craft your tagline.

This is the only one of all three (USP, Single Message, Tagline) your prospects will see exactly as you have written it in your marketing plan. As stated above, my tagline for 10stepmarketing came directly from my single message. This is not usually the case, but it just happened to work out that way.

You may have the same situation. Your USP or your Single Message may be so spot-on you choose to use it as your tagline. As long as your tagline communicates a customer-focused message that’s great.

Always ask yourself the question “What’s so great about that?” when you are thinking of putting a tagline or any other message or copy in front of your prospects. If “what’s so great” is obvious, your copy or tagline is probably already very customer-focused.

If you can further drill down to a more specific customer benefit when asking this question, then you are still in business-owner “feature-land” and you will want to keep asking “What’s so great about that?” until you can’t drill down any further.

(C) 2005 Debbie LaChusa

Debbie LaChusa created The 10stepmarketing System to make marketing your own business as simple as answering 10 questions. Learn more about this unique, step-by-step system and get a free 10-week Marketing E-Course when you subscribe to the free, weekly 10stepmarketing Ezine at
http://www.10stepmarketing.com

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