(Time to read this Blog is about 3.5 minutes)

 

Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:

1. My Biz Quote of the week:
   “If you interview potential job candidates without having an updated outcomes-based Job Description for the position, you don’t even know who you’re looking for.”    
   …Donald Cooper.
    
2. Quick Biz Tip:
   Are you preparing for tough times ahead? 
    
   We live in challenging and uncertain economic times for reasons that you’re well aware of.  This past weekend, while hiking through a beautiful lakeside forest, I observed 2 black squirrels, a grey squirrel and a chipmunk all busy eating seeds, or on the ground stuffing their cheeks with pine nuts, or burying acorns for the Winter.  In other words, they’re preparing for the difficult months ahead.   
    
   What are you doing to prepare your business and your team for the challenging times ahead?  Is your business seasonal or cyclical…or both?  Have you built cash reserves during good times to get you through the slow times?  Many businesses don’t.
    
   As far as I can tell, none of these cute, furry forest creatures have an MBA or a degree in Economics.  What they do have is common sense. They know that tough times will eventually come…and they’ll be ready.  Ready to thrive…nit just survive.  How about you…will you be ready?
    
3. A Danish zoo is looking for pets. The Aalborg Zoo, in Denmark, is asking for donations of healthy pets, including guinea pigs, rabbits, chickens and horses to feed it’s lions and tigers.  The zoo assures squeamish pet owners that their beloved pets will be painlessly euthanized before the feeding begins.
    
4. A shameless plug! If your company, Industry Association or local Chamber of Commerce has a Business Conference this year, or next, my extraordinary bottom-line Keynotes or longer ‘Super-Sessions’ on marketing, management, clarity, culture and profitability could be transformational.
    
   I’ve delivered over 3,000 Conference Sessions in over 40 industries around the world…and I’m starting to get the hang of it.   As part of my commitment to deliver extraordinary outcomes, I do the homework to customize and I stay for the entire Event because some of the most important value is always delivered off-stage in quiet and confidential conversations.  I’m easy to find at donald@donaldcooper.com.
    
5. Starbucks in decline. Starbucks reported its sixth straight decline in same-store quarterly sales.  Becoming ‘great’ is incredibly difficult, but staying ‘great’ is even harder.  Either we change when we shouldn’t have…or we don’t change when we should have to stay ahead.
    
6. AI update. We keep hearing that AI will change or affect almost everything we do in business.  But most of the business owners and managers I speak with have very little understanding of  what this really means…and how to embrace AI.  So, each week, I’ll deliver a few examples to spark your creative juices.
   1. Thermoelectric materials convert heat into electricity.  AI is rapidly accelerating the discovery of next-generation thermoelectric materials by analyzing vast datasets to identify promising elements for efficient thermoelectric conversion.
   2. AI is being used to find people who go missing in the wild by analyzing satellite images. Soon, AI will autonomously fly drones to help search and rescue teams in those searches. 

 

Now, to this week’s important topic:

 

The myth of USPs…and the truth about compelling value:

For years business schools, management books and marketing consultants have been telling us that we must be ‘unique’; we must create ‘Unique Selling Propositions’ (USPs). Sadly, they’ve been lying to us! 

It’s not good enough to be unique.  In today’s over-supplied, undifferentiated, cynical and fiercely competitive business environment, we need to be ‘compelling’. 

‘Unique’ simply means ‘different’ and different is not always better. The bicycle on the right is different…but not better.

’Compelling’, on the other hand, means that your target customers are drawn to you.  Your value proposition is so powerful, so unique and so consistently and joyfully  delivered that your target customers feel compelled to do business with you and to tell others about you, because

you’re functionally, emotionally and financially the clear ‘wise

choice’ for them.  Are you the clear and compelling ‘wise choice’ for your target customers?

So, forget USPs.  You need to create CPDs…‘Compelling Points of Difference’ that will do these 4 things for you.  They will…

1. ‘Grab’ your target customers, and bring them back over and over,
2. Clearly differentiate you from your competitors,
3. Make you ‘famous’…and,
4. Grow your bottom line.

Is it more work to keep coming up with compelling products, services and experiences?  Of course it is!  But, if you don’t, you’re a boring and mediocre commodity, competing on price alone …and that’s a battle you probably can’t win, profitably.  So, what will you do to be ‘compelling’?

Below are my 2 steps to creating compelling customer-owning value.

Step #1:  Develop a clear understanding of what life’s really like for your target customers:

You can’t have a relationship with people you don’t know a lot about.  So, set aside a few hours with some of the best minds and hearts in your business to think and feel like a target customer and answer the questions below. Go somewhere quiet and uplifting. Together, get inside your customers’ minds and hearts!  Dig deep!

Keep in mind that, whatever you sell, people buy with both their minds and their hearts. If you’re not marketing and selling, intelligently and passionately, with both your mind and your heart, there’s a fundamental disconnect between how you sell and how people buy.

When your target customers, as a group, are choosing, buying or using what you sell…

1. Functionally, emotionally and financially, what are they really trying to do?
2. What do they want or need to know about what you sell to wisely choose and effectively use or maintain it?
3. What do they want or need to know about you to be confident in buying it from you?
4. What are their concerns and stresses…and what do they fear?
5. How do they want to feel when they do business with you and when they use or interact with what you sell in any way?…and,
6. About how much do they expect to pay?

 Understanding your customers as individuals.  Today’s technology allows you to know, understand, serve, listen to, have ‘conversations’ with and build relationships with customers as individuals.  What could that look like in your business and what will you commit to do to embrace that extraordinary possibility? 

Step #2:  Delivering your compelling value:

Now, based on your new and improved understanding of your target customers, commit to deliver compelling value and a consistent, uplifting and compelling customer experience to every customer, at every touch-point, every time.  Specifically, what will you do, every day, to help them:

1. Do what they want or need to do,
2. Know what they want or need to know,
3. Feel how they want to feel…
4. And to do all that at a price that they’re willing to pay?

Define the compelling value and extraordinary customer experiences that you’ll always deliver and the values you’ll always live by. Value, experiences and values that will make a powerful financial and emotional connection with your target customers.

What products, services, policies, processes, communication and business culture will be required to be compelling?  What will it ‘feel’ like to do business with you? How flexible and adaptable will you be to customers’ needs and wishes?  What will you do to be their ‘caring coach’…to be the business they can count on to help them wisely choose, effectively use and have the best possible experience with what you sell?  And what kind of staff team will you need to create to make all of that happen.  Remember, you can’t create an extraordinary business by hiring ordinary people. 

                                                          

That’s it for this week…

Live brilliantly and be kind to each other!       

Donald Cooper 

 

Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability.  He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.

August 18, 2025