How to distinguish your cause with “-EST”
Welcome back to the blog series, “Change Your Message,” and today’s post, “Distinguish Your Cause with “-EST” (If you missed our last post or simply need a refresher) click here, now let’s “distinguish your cause.”
Even if you’re not selling a product or service (as is the case with many nonprofit organizations), you still have to tell people what unique value they’ll get for their money, which may include:
- Eliciting emotion by demonstration a “fit” with a particular value system.
- Striking a chord through personal identification with an issue.
- Quelling negative feelings by alleviating an anxiety.
- Providing a tangible incentive, such as a gift with donation.
So, by now you might have a bunch of adjectives, descriptors, mission statement fluff, and a mishmash of ideas…but, likely, no big, impressive, specific point of difference. That’s not only okay, it’s encouraged. The identification process is a messy one. Only after you’ve done some brilliant brainstorming can you distill down your ideas.
Make no mistake: you can still be in business without outlining a clear difference. If you want to be competitive and successful, however, and pull in more business (or attract a better type of customer) than you would without a clear point of differentiation, you need to figure out what makes you stand apart.
Now, it’s time to pare it all down to something that will make a potential customer stop in his or her tracks. In the next tip, I’ll guide you in taking your –est to writing out your UVP.
Watch for the next post of this blog series where we get into Tip 2 and “Write Out Your Unique Value Proposition.” And if you haven’t downloaded Olga Mizrahi’s UVP Worksheet now is the time to do it and be prepared to get busy! Click on this link, other goodies or visit ChunkofChange.com and get started on becoming “unique”!
