Most of my days start off with messages like this:

“Elise! HELP! I don’t know how to market my business and I feel like a big fat imposter who’s conning everyone into giving me their money so I can buy a cocaine hippo and live a reckless debaucherous life as a drug lord in Colombia. I don’t want a hippo or a drug-lord life, I swear!!! I just want to NOT have to wake up at the crack of daybreak before the scungy little pigeons outside my bedroom window start cooing in judgement at my tardiness for work. What do I do!?!?!!”

Okay, so they don’t really start off like that but this is a common theme most online business owners go through as they try to make a name for themselves in the cut throat world of marketing.

Unfortunately, slapping up a post that says, “Hey, check out my article!” or “You there! Come listen to my podcast!” and expecting millions of dollars to heave its way into your bank account just doesn’t work anymore – actually, it never worked.

Like I said in this post about writing clever content and this post about building a profitable email list, you’ve got to say something worthy of making someone want to listen to you.

I can tell you to do Instagram reels or Youtube videos or Pinterest pins or *insert latest social media trend here* but unless you’re doing it with difference, it’s gonna be a slow hard slog to make a decent living from your business.

The good news is, you’ve got me in your corner! And what I’m helping you with today is figuring out how to differentiate yourself on those platforms so people choose to listen to you over your competitors.

This is also known as a Unique Selling Proposition (or what I like to call “the imposter syndrome eradicator”).

And before you go making your case that you don’t have a unique advantage, there’s nothing remarkable about your work or you as a person, I say FOOEY! Enough with the self-doubt! You’ve got a USP and by golly we are gonna get it out of you!

Right, now that’s out of the way, it’s important to get a better understanding of what a USP in online business can look like so let’s start with some impressive examples.

5 Impressive USP’s by Women in Business

Most of the USP examples I’ve seen online are of companies with physical products or online businesses by men. Nothing against that, I just want to show off the brilliant USP’s that women in this industry have for their businesses – so let’s go!

1. Money Words Monthly

This was a membership program that sold me the second I read the slogan: Marketing for people who hate marketing. I mean.. it’s absolutely brilliant! The USP is so clear it hits you right in the liver. If you hate marketing your business, this is the program that did it all for you so you could find something else to hate instead. Shenee Howard struck gold with this idea, which is why it was such a successful program. Unfortunately it no longer exists, but this program will always stick out to me as something that absolutely nailed its USP.

2. Plant You

Plant You is a brand built by Carleigh Bodrug that I found on Instagram one day when the scroll was awfully strong. I have saved a lifetime worth of her recipes and food hacks to try. Her mission is simple: to help you eat more plants, and she shows you how by using her expertise in living a whole-foods, plant-based, oil-free lifestyle. Her USP is “scrappy” plant-based low-waste recipes. She has a series on Instagram called “scrappy cooking” where she shows you what to do with your food scraps. Like turning leftover chickpea water into chocolate mousse or making red wine vinegar out of old wine. She took a common topic and made it unique and useful by showing people how to eat more veggies and create less waste!

3. Yoga for Bad People

I mean… the name of the company immediately wants you to find out what it means right? Yoga for Bad People is a brand dedicated to travel, partying and yoga retreats. On their about page they state that, “We are normal people. We want to have fun. And we like yoga.” I’m thinking, where do I sign up!?!?! And yet, others will run a as fast as they can in the other direction – which is the whole point. A brilliant USP SHOULD create a clear divide. As you know, Yoga has been marketed as an activity of zen and enlightenment, not what you do in-between benders. This company decided to obliterate that perception and created their differentiation by making a whole brand out of being “bad,” and I am 100% here for it.

4. Her First 100k

Tori Dunlap is the founder of Her First 100k where she helps you take control of your finances and fight the patriarchy in the process. After successfully saving $100,000 at age 25 she chose to quit her corporate job in marketing to fight for women’s financial rights because, “having a financial education is a woman’s best form of protest.” If you didn’t catch it, her USP is financial feminism. She’s rich, intelligent and not afraid to speak her mind. There’s a ton of personal finance advisors out there, but not so many (if any) doing it how she is. This is how she stands out. Well, that and the fact she’s a badass.

5. Alexandra Gater

Alexandra Gater is one of my favourite interior designers whom I follow on Youtube religiously. Her girly whimsical style is what attracted me to her channel when most interior design channels were pumping out ultra modern makeovers or continuous regurgitations of the modern farmhouse style – which I love but was utterly bored of. Alexandra’s point of difference as an interior designer is that she helps renters makeover their small spaces on a budget. There aren’t many channels that focus specifically on helping renters design their spaces, and none with Alexandra’s style, which is why she has a massive and well-deserved audience with 400k+ subscribers.

As you can see, your USP doesn’t need to be radically different, it just needs to be different enough to make it YOURS so that it stands out. And how you do that is by infusing YOU into your USP.

11 Questions to Find Your Unique Selling Proposition

Next up, I’ve got 11 questions I want you to put a decent chunk of time into answering because they will help you discover what your Unique Selling Proposition is as well as give you ideas on how you can start displaying that distinction.

1. What are you really really ridiculously good at in your work?

2. How do you do that differently (or would like to) in your industry or niche? 

3. What do you think you do better than everyone else in your industry?

4. What are you doing in your business that’s worth talking about?

5. Why should anyone care about what you do or how you do it?

6. What personal elements do you add (or want to add) to the way you do business?

7. What about your industry makes you roll your eyes?

8. How can you do things differently in your business to reduce the eye-rolling?

9. How does this help you to stand out or become different than your competitors?

10. Who is the person who will absolutely LOVE that you do business this way?

11. What specific things can you do that makes this person instantly feel like you get them?

Answer those questions and you’ll find brand new insights into how to do what you’ve already been doing but BETTER and far more “you” than you were doing before.

And then go about your business and infuse your USP into EVERYTHING you do.

Your social media content.

Your website copy.

Your articles.

Your podcast.

Your videos.

All of it.

Because when you’re being uniquely you, your confidence soars and the imposter syndrome vanishes.

And what you’re left with is a Unique Selling Proposition that no one can replicate.

Because, my friend, you are the USP.

xo

 

P.S – Here’s some of my favourite resources on marketing:

Elise McDowell