The average person goes into a sale or business conversation knowing their USP and they try to build the talk around showing how great their product or service is.

Talking about your USP, UVP (or other acronym) isn't always a good idea because you end up pressuring people into a sale when you aren't sure whether they need your product or service.

That's the reason why it's a bad idea to begin the conversation by saying something like, "good morning Aunty, I am now selling good quality bags and shoes from Lagos, Malaysia and some from the UK. My prices are really good. Aunty please come and help me and buy from me".

This example is from a made up scenario of a Nigerian female undergrad trying to sell fashion accessories to her aunt who has three female children. You want more details from our case study? Check out the previous posts!

Before we continue, we should explore what a USP or UVP is since Alice (our entrepreneur) assumes that the sales pitch has to be built around those things in order to be effective.

The USP "unique selling point" or UVP "unique value proposition" are those things that answer the question 1. what will my product or service do for you? 2. Why is my product or service different from other people in the market? 3. Why should you (the customer) bother talking to me (the seller)?

In this case Alice thinks her USP is 1. the GOOD QUALITY of her shoes and bags 2. the SOPHISTICATED SELECTION she has curated from Lagos, Malaysia and the United Kingdom 3. Her AFFORDABLE PRICES ...and there's also the hint that since Alice and "Aunty" are related, she should help a family member out and buy from her to encourage her business.

Whether we agree that these are significant enough to constitute a USP is besides the point... Alice thinks these are important so we are going to focus on that.

Alice has assumed that all these things are important to her aunty and that is the focus of her sales pitch.

But how do we even know for sure that "Aunty" is concerned about any of these? How do we know that “Aunty” likes low prices, or UK clothes, or sophisticated fashion?

We have to know this because if neither of these things are important to “Aunty” and all the other potential customers we’re talking to, then we’re wasting our time! Our carefully crafted sales “toasting” is going to fall on deaf ears.

So how do we know for sure? We will tackle those issues in the next post!

In the meantime, ask me anything in the comments section below.