What makes your business different? What makes it really different? When you’re a coach it can be very difficult to show potential clients exactly what makes you stand apart from the many, many other coaches they could work with. Do you struggle to find your USP – your unique selling point?

A few years ago I was introduced to the concept of Emotional USPs. Our brains tend to make emotional decisions first about buying a service and then we rationalise our decision. When you know what makes your business emotionally different to your competitors you can tap into the emotions of your prospects, stand out from the crowd and attract more of your ideal client.

There are six emotional USPs and I’m going to explain each one in detail, in a series of blog posts. The six are Certainty, Connection, Contribution, Growth, Significance and Variety. We’ll start with Certainty.

Is Your Emotional USP Certainty?

There are six human needs that have been written about for many years now – Certainty, Connection, Contribution, Growth, Significance and Variety. They explain what we do as individuals and why and how we do what we do. We all strive to meet our core needs and issues arise when we can’t meet them. Most of us will have a main human need that drives us, but we also need a mix of all six to stay balanced.

From these six basic human needs, six emotional USPs for businesses have been developed. Most businesses have one main emotional USP that they can use to attract perfect clients. The first human need and Emotional USP is Certainty.

Certainty as a Human Need

The human need of Certainty is about having assurance that you can avoid pain and move towards pleasure and gain. When Certainty is one of your personal needs, you need to feel secure and safe about your future. You can tell if Certainty is one of your core needs if you are trustworthy and always do what you say you’ll do. You enjoy planning, thrive on a schedule and are very organized. You’re hesitant to take risks or have new experiences.

Is Certainty your key motivator?

Certainty as an Emotional USP

If Certainty is the Emotional USP of your business, you probably have a reputation for doing what you say you’ll do. You can be trusted to give good advice and to provide solid support to your clients. You won’t spend your time telling your clients about the myriad tools you can use to help them – you’ll just get on with supporting them and doing what they need you to do. You’re known as being a safe pair of hands. You probably get a lot of recommendations from happy clients, because you work with them to deliver the results you say you can deliver. You help your clients to focus on their future and will stay with them on their journey, until they reach their destination – and even beyond. You give your clients security, stability and consistency and you probably don’t confuse them with new-fangled technology, or confuse them with jargon.

Is Certainty your business’s Emotional USP?

The Big Brand

In my research into Emotional USPs I’ve been looking for big brands that I believe use each of the six. For Certainty my favourite example is Ronseal – the UK company that makes products which protect fences and sheds. In 1994 their advertising agency came up with the marketing slogan “Does exactly what is says on the tin”. It was part of a campaign designed to de-mystify their products. Ronseal Fence Paint is for painting fences. Ronseal Quick Drying Wood Stain is wood stain that dries quickly. The products do exactly what you expect them to do. Safety, security and certainty.

Over the years the phrase has been used in many different ways, to the point that it has made it into the Oxford Dictionary of Idiom. It has been written about, sung about and has come to represent a product or policy that is open, honest and delivers against its promise. You might even have used the phrase yourself!

I believe that Certainty is Ronseal’s Emotional USP. Customers by Ronseal products because they know that they will do what they need them to do and deliver the results they are expecting.

My question for you is this: what exactly does it say on the Ronseal tin?!

You can read more about the six human needs all over the internet. There’s a good article here on LinkedIn. Tony Robbins has a quiz you can take to find out which of the six is your key motivator. Click here to take the quiz and then, if you’d like to help me with my research, email me at chantal@appletreeuk.com to let me know your results, which I will keep confidential.