How to Use USPs to Get Paid More

I believe you can and should be paid more for what you do.

In this episode, I’m going to show you a few ways to highlight your USPs—“differentiating value”—the right way in your sales process. Customers will sit up and pay attention…and you won’t lock yourself into a rate match.

If you’re the kind of leader…

• Who has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on “branding,” yet found that you’re still kicked in the teeth on pricing…and your customers aren’t willing to pay more for the fancy “brand” you’ve paid for…you’re going to love this.
• Or maybe you’re the kind of leader who has made one, two, or maybe even more attempts at sales training, and you still haven’t moved your NIM at least 100 points beyond your peers…then you’re going to love this.
• Or maybe you are one who is already getting nice premium pricing but want even more…you’re going to enjoy this episode.

Here are the challenges:

• Even if you have USPs that should already command substantial premium pricing, your people could be unknowingly sabotaging sales. They’re probably bringing them up in declarative sentences like this: “We are the only bank in the county that has the ability to issue a debit card within minutes.” Nothing sounds more sales-y.
• If your people are using USPs in the sales process, they aren’t doing it optimally.
• If there is not a good communication system, people in your community won’t be sharing your USPs with your most desired prospects. Because of this, it’s not clear to your desired prospects that you are the only real choice.

EVERY bank is facing these issues with regards to getting the word out to prospects about their USPs effectively.

That’s why today, I’m going to give you three steps that will boost your results dramatically in just a few weeks. This isn’t something you can find in most sales training or marketing systems out there.

Step 1: Unlike so many sales training systems that teach “rote questioning,” you need to match the USP to the target market. A little blue-haired old lady will be thrilled about your USP of how your people know how to ladder CDs and match to her retirement goals. But a serial entrepreneur has different concerns – so your approach has to be different.

Step 2: Similarly, sales training isn’t usually integrated with your overall marketing efforts and holistic marketing system. You need integrated messaging explicitly aimed at what the target lights up about. A holistic marketing system like this is how you get ROI from those expensive marketing dollars.

Step 3: Forget the “branding programs” where you use fluffy and boilerplate messages like, “We make decisions locally.” You can’t adopt this “one message fits all” approach. Your salespeople need to have dozens of Level 1, 2, 3, and 4 USPs and know how to use the right three to four for the type of prospect in front of them. Do that, and the customer immediately believes they’ve found their new home.

Let’s go over it one more time. You need:

1. Customized instead of rote questioning
2. Integrated marketing/sales with both taking each prospect through the close and beyond
3. Awareness and skill to choose the RIGHT USPs for each prospect

Do this, and you can have the confidence of KNOWING you can get any deal you want at premium pricing.

In our next episode, we’ll talk about how to use the right sales system. It never feels like sales and works to close over 85% of the deals you identify as the most desirable. And it allows you to relax and prosper during good times and bad.