Am I right, Sean. Did I understand your idea in Brain Audit correctly?

I guess that comes under your heading of looking at your competition. But, I’ve also read that you can derive uniqueness from the things that you don’t do, which your competition also currently does not do?

Do you have a view on that Sean? Or should we stick to the things that we do do (if you get my meaning..)

Another huge mistake I see lots of people making lately is choosing a totally arbitrary USP. I wish I could tell you some of the crazier ones I’ve seen but I don’t want to name any names! Basically they are stuff like “I used to like the carwash when I was a kid so I’m going to call myself The Carwash CPA! And use carwash analogies for all my services!”

The humour and the “silly” photos become part of the brand on my site, but they’re nestled amongst rock-solid articles. In that case, the quirkiness becomes acceptable. If the content was just quirky and the photos quirky, then it wouldn’t work at all.

The uniqueness comes from the tone, but also needs to be backed up with solid content. You can put on any quirks you like, if you deliver the goods. Quirkiness alone will make you stand out and it’s a good idea. But you need to also be respected for your information, otherwise you’ll just be disregarded as quirky.

e.g. In our book, The Brain Audit, which is a marketing book, we have Chicken curry recipes and 99 cartoons. That makes is quirky.When was the last time you saw a chicken curry recipe in a marketing book? But the content is solid. And that’s what matters. And then from the hundreds of books you read, you’ll remember The Brain Audit because it stands out for its quirks and content.

I’ve read your Picasso references on intuitive idea people etc but how does one sell that..I use a few different photos too but have wondeed if it is severing me as well as I hope but I do stand out..amongst my vanilla peers….esp. on serious networking sites andalso with clients ho suspect creativty and expression as too ‘out there’ for them.

Many thanks from Canada.

Your off the wall and grounded thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

As someone who has struggled to define the USP of my I.T startup (you will find my attempts on quite a few threads at 5000bc), I find that this article expands on what I first found in the revised version of Brain Audit.

Thanks, once again, for all the knowledge that you share.

If there is anyone new to Psychotactics reading this article, all I can say is that this nugget of wisdom about USP being what you ‘want to do’ for customers that’s different from others is worth thousands, if not millions of dollars in business.

And, no, I am not exaggerating or paid by Sean to sing his praises.