- Today I've got two great ways
to help you create your own personal USP.
Stay to the end and I'm also gonna give you a top tip
about why perfectionism is never your friend,
particularly when it comes to thinking about your USP
and building your brand.
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So this is a really quick and simple exercise
to help you discover how to find your USP,
and I'm gonna use plenty of USP examples
to help you think through it.
I'm Dr. Suzanne Doyle-Morris, founder of inclusiq,
and I've been helping professional women
go through promotions and interviews for the last 15 years.
Now, owning your USP has been the success
of so many of my clients
because it helps people know what they're great at.
Now, any interview, whether it's for promotion
or at a completely new organization,
well, there's two key parties.
There's you and them.
And that means we're gonna think about the USP today
of both of them.
So you're going to have to do a bit of homework,
but it's really easy.
Now, the first thing is to think about your USP.
So for that, let's look at your past appraisals
and any references you've had.
Now, if you haven't already,
take a look at them and look at the way
your boss and your colleagues describe them.
Now, you may think you're great.
But the truth is we all get hired, fired, or promoted
based on not what we think of ourselves
but what others think of us.
So take a little look at the phrases and words
that people use in common when they've described you
over the years.
The theme is in looking at the commonalities,
and that will help you get a sense of what your USP is.
Now, one tech client I had,
historically had been called a safe pair of hands for years,
but she was getting a bit bored.
She wanted to stretch.
And she wanted a new employer to think bigger
about her skills.
However, she knew that reliability was certainly an asset
and something that she didn't want to lose completely
because it also made her really proud.
So for her interviews she did use the phrase
safe pair of hands and she talked about
how she was known as Ms. Budget around the office
'cause she brought things on time and on budget.
Now, truly that is not the sexiest of terms,
but for her, it really worked.
So carefully pick up examples to highlight
the stretches that she'd had in the company as well.
Those were the ways she showed her stretches.
So at the end she said,
"I'm looking for a strategic position to get me further,
"but actually, you'll see from the evidence,
"I'm definitely the right person you can trust
"with these types of projects."
So in that single statement she was highlighting
both her competence and her ambition.
And she was rewarded with a senior strategy position
within two months of us working together.
So the second part is the employer.
What is their USP?
So most organizations love buzz words
and talking about their values.
So these values will be all over their website
or the annual statements,
or, as many of my corporate clients do,
actually written in big, bold letters
all across their reception areas.
Now, these words may be words like innovative,
honest, excellence, community, or integrity.
Now, these phrases can seem a bit generic
but they're actually like gold dust to you
because they'll give you an idea
of who they're looking to hire.
Some of these words will resonate with you in particular.
So pick the ones that do
and then come up with concrete examples
of when you demonstrated that value.
One of my coaching clients
was going up for a promotion to MD at a major UK bank.
So we looked at the core values
the company wanted to encourage
and discussed how she could highlight those words
based on the projects that she'd historically
been working on.
So, for honesty, we came up with two examples.
One was her role in a project
where a company had to admit a mistake to clients.
And another examples was when she had spoken truth to power
to a senior colleague only to develop
a very good relationship with him going forward.
So these were her honesty examples
and they were based so much on what we knew
the company would wanna hear
but actually what was also a key part of who she was,
her USP.
So in the space below tell me a couple words
that you routinely hear
as part of your 360-feedback from others.
So, for me, it's thought-provoking and funny.
Which I'm gonna take
'cause it seems to work for the audiences where I speak.
And lastly, the third thing is
don't ever use perfectionism as your unique selling point.
It sounds like bragging,
and perfectionism is actually the death dealt
to so many hardworking but exhausted professionals
that I work with.
Now, most people stumble on these question interviews
because they haven't thought through enough
of their solid examples to make them rock solid.
So instead, look back at the feedback you already had
and look at the company's values to see where the two mix.
That can be a really nice USP.
And if you found this helpful
and maybe you'd like to think about
how to make these work exactly specifically for you,
then consider some coaching and get in touch.
Find the link below and schedule some time
where we can talk about what coaching
I might be able to do for you.
But in this space below, write out your biggest takeaway,
and also check out a couple videos that I think you'll love.
Based on what's going on for you,
first is, what is your USP question
and how to give the right answers for them.
And the second is, depending on how that all goes,
feeling undervalued at work.
And really it's about practical advice to get unstuck,
if that's where you currently are.
So thanks for listening today,
and I hope the work you do on your USP pays off.
Because nobody cares about your career as much as you do.