How to develop your unique selling proposition: 2nd V

The Value series

• How to increase your financial value: 3rd V
• How to develop your unique selling proposition: 2nd V
• The value creation approach to building wealth

Last week, I introduced ValueSpeaks 3 V’s of value creation. I started by explaining the value creation approach to building wealth by mastering the 3 V’s. The first and second V results in a unique selling proposition for your personal brand. The first V refers to defining ‘core values’ in order to create a culture and identity that sets you apart. The second V is Value that relates to the quality of being useful or important, this refers to the sum total of what you represent and bring to the universe.

2ND V-Your value

To define yourself and the value you possess, you need to have a complete understanding of the following:

1. Your personality (who am I?)

Do you know what your personality is and how it comes across? This starts with your core values which you hopefully have defined already. Do you have a unique way of addressing things? Do you recognise the special things about yourself that make you unique? What comes to your mind when you think about you?

Exercise 1 – Identify the key qualities of your personality and write them down. You can write them down as “I am” statements e.g. I am kind. Focus on the positives.

2. Your skills, gifts and passion

In my previous post on boosting your earnings, one of the things I advise is a skills audit. Do you have a full appreciation of your skills, gift, and talents?

These days, it is not just the skills obtained from formal education that counts, soft skills and emotional intelligence have become essential in all works of life. Examples of skills you can explore include, leadership skills, marketing skills, communication skills, IT skills, and so on. Sometimes you need help recognising this so this might be a good opportunity to obtain some feedback (constructive) from people around you.

For example, I am a Management Accountant. All accountants are meant to be numbers and data-savvy, and proficiency in Microsoft Excel (Excel) is a prerequisite. I often hear the phrase “you are very technical” from colleagues, and I just shrug nonchalantly. This is because I felt that I wasn’t particularly good at Excel, and it wasn’t anything special if I was. This was true at some point but over time I had taken on some projects that made me pick up extra Excel skills that put me at an advanced level. This made me the “go-to” person for Excel in my team. It occurred to me that as usual, I was being hard on myself and needed to recognise how good I was without it affecting my desire to even do better.

Exercise 2- Part 1 – Make a list of all your skills. Set some time aside to do this. Write all the things you can do, not just things you are really good at. You can do a separate exercise to highlight what can be improved.

3. Your creations

What have you created with your skills, gifts and talents? How have you used your skills ?

Think about all the special features and qualities that you have written down in exercises 1, 2, and 3. Have you created something out of these?

It doesn’t have to be anything major like a blog, a book, or a music album. But it is important to ask how much value you have created so far. No doubt, your lovely smile calms the oceans of unrest in the mind of whoever you flash it at and is valuable. However, it’s time to identify your measurable achievements. That bit you have to write on a resume to sound your gong. Write everything notable. It could be a project at work, something you’ve done that made a difference and created value. Refrain from being modest, after all, no one will read it but yourself.

Exercise 3- Write down your main achievements

Unique Selling proposition

If you have drafted your core values and completed exercises 1,2 and 3, you have developed a unique selling proposition (USP). Your values, your personality, and your skills are unique to you. This is what makes you tick! The value creation approach to building wealth requires understanding yourself enough to develop a USP.

A USP is what convinces people to buy into your brand or your service. We will explore this further in part 3 of this series.

Finally

A dear friend introduced me and a group of friends to a book called: “The book of mistakes: 9 secrets to creating a successful future”. It’s my best read so far this year. We did a mini book review and some of the profound messages from one of the 9 mistakes are quoted below:

“Look at that penny. It costs far more to make a penny than a penny is worth”

“The label on the penny is supposed to declare the value, but the real value is not the label”

“Ok, the penny is worth more than a penny- the nickel too. Last I checked, it costs almost twice as much to make the nickel than it is worth. But that label is on there, so we accept it and that’s what it is.

“Mistake number 2 is allowing someone else defines your value”

The Book of Mistakes: 9 sectrets to creating a successful future