Leverage your strengths to boost your USP (with these 3 checklists)

Personal branding is?often thought to be?primarily about drawing attention to yourself as?loudly?as possible.?Talking up is part of the trade, as the saying goes.?However,?that is only half the truth.?Because selling?something?begins?with?having?something to sell. And this is where your strengths and the USP come into play.

Stand out from the crowd and others will choose you.

Getting ahead in business requires that you offer something unique that makes you stand out from the crowd.

And that applies to teams just as much as to individuals. Team members should also know what strengths their team as a collective has and what it stands for.?

Everyone talks about it. But what exactly is the USP?

In self-branding and sales psychology, this unique characteristic is called USP (unique selling proposition). The USP sets an offer apart from the competition.

As humans, it is our values, emotions, strengths and behaviors that make us unique and separate us from the rest.

"But how am I supposed to build a USP? After all, I'm an everyday guy with an everyday life. I can't play tennis like Roger Federer and I don't have Adele's voice. What's unique about me?" I often hear these objections. In in fact, this is due to our distorted perspective: knowing ourselves well, we take our knowledge, skills and achievements for granted.

"Giving a presentation in front of a hundred people? Anyone can do that!"; "Receive a rating of "exceeds expectations" in the annual review? That's nothing special." Well, there you're wrong. It is indeed something special. But because you master it, you think it's normal.

Focus rather than being "Everybody's Darling"

Developing your USP and personal brand is not about becoming unique - you already are. Rather, it is about recognising and appreciating what makes you unique.

When you have a clear USP and a clear cut profile, you won't please everyone - and you may also rub people the wrong way at times. That's perfectly okay. If you want to position yourself successfully, you must not be "everybody's darling", as this would dilute your personal brand.

If you want to be everything for everyone, you're going to be nothing for nobody.

Surely you have many talents, strengths and competences and it is difficult for you to reduce your key qualities to two or three. But in order to be successful in branding, you must maintain focus so that your USP is compelling and catchy. If you try to achieve too much at once, you will fail.

Establish your USP and put it into action

These 3 checklists will help you:

Checklist #1 - Identify your key assets

Write down the answers to the following 7 questions:

1. What are my key strengths and abilities?
2. When do I feel particularly motivated and alive?
3. What professional successes have I achieved in the last year?
4. Why should someone work with me?
5. What is particularly important to me in life?
6. How do I inspire others?
7. What values do I base my actions on?

Pro-Tip 1: Don't limit yourself to a purely business perspective. This is about you as a whole person, not just a business person. => Also write down strengths and competences that you use in your private life.

Pro-Tip 2: Involve your network and get other people's feedback on these questions. This will give you an indication of how the people you work or live with perceive you.

Pro-Tip 3: Our weaknesses are often more present than our strengths. However, when creating your USP and personal brand, consciously refrain from thinking about your weaknesses. Why is that important? Because you can't successfully promote your weaknesses. People want the best in their field. So give them the best you have to offer.

Checklist #2 - Determine your USP (based on your main assets)

Go through your list again:

• Tick off the points that you think are outstanding. Weigh the individual qualities against each other. Take two at a time and consider which is more important.
• Reduce your list to 3 core qualities. These describe your USP.
• Write these core attributes on a large sheet of paper with a thick pen. Take a few steps back and look at the result. And now: Let the magic happen! In most cases, the USP is created by combining a number of different elements. => Ask yourself: What is special, what is unique about the combination of these features?

Checklist #3 - Work with your USP every day

You have defined the distinguishing strengths and characteristics. You should now apply and leverage them to your business. You can do this by answering the following questions:

• How well and where do my key strengths and their combination already come into play in my current job?
• How could I use, emphasise and show them even more in my work?
• From these considerations, what actions can I take?

It is worth spending enough time working on these questions. Only when you know your USP, when you are aware of what you stand for, can you systematically build your personal brand.

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