In the toolbox of every values-based business creator, there are some tools we enjoy using more than others to tell our brand’s story.

Ooh, I get to have a new color palette! we marvel when it’s time to collaborate with a web designer.

OMG, I am so ready for a new About page! we tell our newly hired copywriter.

Pinterest? Sure! I’ll try it out, we think, after reading the 5 Best Pinterest-For-Business Tips article everyone’s been circulating on Twitter.

As a branding specialist, I get excited about these elements, too. But I’d like to share with you the TWO unsexy-sounding business tools every values-based brand creator absolutely needs to cozy up to — the sooner, the better.

But first, what are the signs that you could stand to have a better relationship with these two unsexy-sounding tools?

• You find explaining what you do in one or two sentences to be really difficult.
• You’ve been investing in all sorts of courses and programs that address the different pieces and parts of doing business, but you find it tough to implement because you know your foundation isn’t as solid as you’d like it to be.
• You have SO many product ideas and you’re having trouble narrowing down which one to start working on first.
• You’ve been doing business for a while and you’ve had some sales, but something just isn’t clicking. You feel like people are interested in what you have to say, but you also know you’re not really working in your sweet spot yet.
• You feel frustrated and anxious whenever you see one of your industry peers tweeting about her new offering. Damnit, why didn’t I think of that? you find yourself fretting.

If one or more of the points above resonate with you, it’s high time you get to know your Brand Proposition and your Unique Selling Position, or USP.

The two unsexy-sounding but oh so powerful business-and-branding tools you have to get clear on are:

1. Your Value Proposition, or as we like to call it at The Voice Bureau, your Brand Proposition, and
2. Your Unique Selling Position, or USP.

If you’re anything like many of the creative people dreaming of starting businesses even as I type this article, your eyes may be glazing over at these terms. You’ve probably seen them a hundred times in various marketing articles. But here’s the thing: have you really done this foundational work of getting clear on what they are for your business?

Brand Proposition is a clear statement of:

• the Who — who your business serves
• the Value — what they get from working with you
• the Vibe — your brand voice or unique style (at The Voice Bureau, we express this by your Voice Values)
• the View — your unique POV on the problem your solution addresses

Here’s the magic mojo in these tools: if you can confidently state your Brand Proposition, you’re clear on what business you’re in. If you’re not so sure about your Brand Proposition, you’re probably not quite clear on what your business is yet. And you surely don’t yet understand your USP.

Here are two fictional examples of clear Brand Propositions:

Example 1:

Laurie Matthias helps parents of infants [the WHO] adjust to life with their newborn and establish their household’s New Normal [the VALUE]. Her firm but playful approach [the VIBE, with Voice Values: Power, Helpfulness, Playfulness] allows parents to relax into their new roles and create systems that encourage every member of the family to thrive. She believes that through creating a System of Care, baby and parents both can be themselves and flow more easily with the rhythms of life [the VIEW].

Example 2:

Troy Yu is a dog trainer who specializes in helping senior pet owners [the WHO] train and love their dogs. His gentle, personable, and systematized approach [the VIBE, with Voice Values: Intimacy, Love, Clarity, Accuracy] helps seniors quickly learn simple, clear commands and praise-and-reward techniques, establishing them as confident alpha owners [the VALUE]. He believes that any willing person can become a great pack leader and that it’s never too late to teach an old dog new tricks [the VIEW].

Once your know your Brand Proposition, you can pinpoint your USP.

Your Unique Selling Position, USP, is also commonly referred to as your ‘differentiator.’

While some of your competitors and peers may have the same or very similar Brand Proposition as you, your USP is what sets you apart from every single one of ‘em.

You can identify your USP by thinking about what makes you different. Maybe that’s:

• your proprietary methodology
• your unusual blend of training
• your extraordinary circumstances or life experience

What isn’t a USP? (Although sometimes people try to pass it off as such.)

• Your passion. You’d better have passion if you’re providing a service to people based on your expertise. We expect you to have passion, and we know that passion gets expressed differently based on your Voice Values. (For instance, a high Enthusiasm value expresses passion quite differently than a high Accuracy value does.)
• Your experience of being a survivor or an overcomer. Many of us are survivors and overcomers, and the world is better for it. But resting your USP on your experience of that lands as way too general and ambiguous. Let your survivor disposition inform and inspire your work, but don’t declare it as your USP.
• Your intuition. While using your intuition in your service can be awesome and a legitimate feature of your work, because it’s not measurable from the outside, it’s not a strong USP.
• Any “I’m better” conclusion that can’t easily be substantiated — “I’m the best,” “I’m mindful,” “I’m committed,” “I’m all in.” Many people boldly claim these types of things on their About or Services page, but if everybody’s claiming it, it’s definitely not a USP.

While Brand Proposition and USP are basic building blocks of any viable business, you might be surprised to know how many creative and intelligent people start businesses without being clear on these important elements.

We have had ENOUGH of seeing smart, sensitive practitioners stumble and falter in their business and brand-building because they simply aren’t clear, settled, and confident in their relationship with these tools.

That’s why when Tami and I set out to design our premium service experience for The Voice Bureau, we knew we wanted to go all the way back to basics.

We knew that the fun stuff — content strategy, social media conversation, visual vibe — couldn’t come to life for our clients without a clear Brand Proposition and USP.

So when we recently revamped Empathy Marketing, we decided to put ALL of this into the experience.

We’re now booking clients for Empathy Marketing 2.0. And until June 1st, 2013, we’re booking at an introductory price. Learn more here.

In the comments, Tami and I would love to hear:

What’s your Brand Proposition? What’s your USP, or differentiator? Lay them on us in the comments, and be sure to share your Voice Values, too.

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A recent trend I’ve spotted among those who coach and advise microbusiness owners is the advice to survey your readers to find out what they want from you.

The premise here is great. Any time I see someone wanting to focus their business expression  on their potential clients rather than on themselves, it’s a good thing.

But — is surveying your blog readership, or even your email subscriber list, a smart way to gather information?

Let’s take a look.

Chances are, if you’re doing a good job of creating high-interest, helpful blog content, you have a loyal core of readers — people who consistently read everything you publish. This core group is most likely a fraction of the traffic to your site on any given day.

Then, you’ve got a bigger group of semi-readers, who pop on and off of your site after clicking a link on Twitter or Facebook, or clicking through a pin of yours. They probably glance at your latest post for two seconds, then bounce. If it’s a particularly engrossing topic, they may read in full, but not comment or share the post. These semi-readers are not part of your loyal core, but they are moderately interested in learning more about what you have to say/teach/model/share (which is good), or in hearing your take in particular (which is very good).

You may have Right People-like buyers hanging out in both groups: the loyal core and the moderately interested peeps. Will the moderately interested peeps click through to your sales page, read or skim to the bottom, and click Buy on any given day? That’s a matter of everything from how much time they have in that moment they encounter your site, their energy level, their predisposition to be proactive (or not) about addressing a problem they’re aware they have, and the balance in their PayPal account.

But your Right People readers? The majority of the time, they will buy your offer if the timing is right (for them), if the price is right (according to the value you’ve demonstrated on the sales page and through the rest of your brand’s suite of signals), and if they believe that you see them and get them and you have the solutions they’ve been yearning for.

Whether your Right Person buyer buys what you’re offering is a function of how well you’ve communicated that you understand what they’re up to, what troubles and concerns them, what delights and serves them, and that you’ve designed this offer with them in mind.

Your brand is not a buffet.

A short personal story:

I like buffet eating. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. As a kid, one of my favorite  ”holidays” of the year was our annual Kerr family reunion. Why? Picnic food! Three stretches of wooden picnic table full of it. I like having options.

But great brands that get profitable are not built buffet-style.

Here’s what I mean.

Let’s imagine you’re a graphic designer. Your business is a year old and you get about 1500 unique visitors to your site every month. In the first year of business, you brought in $16,578.43 in revenue from a hodge podge of digital download products, one-to-one services for clients, and one 4-session coaching workshop that 6 people signed up for. You blog inconsistently: sometimes 4 times a month, sometimes none. You use every social media channel you can think of, but you don’t really have a plan for what you’re doing there — you’re just showing up and being warm and engaging, sharing links to other people’s stuff and occasionally to your own. You have an email list of 117 people, but you’ve never had a freebie so you have no idea why most of these people signed up to receive updates from you. You’ve emailed them only 5 times over the course of the last year.

You’re eager to grow your business and your reach, so you’ve decided to survey your blog readers to find out what they want from you, blog-wise and product or service-wise.

You post a survey on your blog, and you also email the link to your subscriber list. There are 5 questions, because you’ve read that you should keep surveys to as few questions as possible, certainly under 10. Two of your questions are multiple choice and three are open-ended. You get 38 responses over a one-month period.

Because you’ve asked so few questions, you have very little insight to work with about who these people are. (But the thought of giving them the third degree, via a longer survey or a phone call, just feels . . . weird.)  Your survey tells you that only 14% of those surveyed are “currently looking for a graphic designer to work with” but 87% of them “would appreciate more free graphic downloads.” (Don’t blame me — you asked them!)

Furthermore, to your open-ended question, “What would you like me to share on my blog?” you’ve received all manner of responses, from “Photos of your creative studio, so we can see what it’s like to be you!” to “How-to articles that help me learn PhotoShop techniques” to “Top 10 lists of your favorite free iPhone apps!” to “How you got into graphic design,” “Tell me whether I need to hire a web designer or a graphic designer or both,” and “Tips for how I can start my own graphic design business, please! I want to be you when I grow up.”

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . that was . . . helpful (?)

The reality is, if you left your brand conversation up to people with the time and inclination to participate in a blog survey (not necessarily your Right People), and you actually implemented what they asked for, you’d be taking a huge risk: a risk that you’d miss the Important Conversations your Most Likely To Buy Person really cares about, wants to engage in online, and wants your take on.

Don’t risk turning your brand conversation into a buffet.

When surveying people can be helpful

There is one group of people you absolutely want to talk with and learn from: people you’ve worked with, who have experienced your offers first hand (i.e. purchased your digital product or hired you for a service). You’ll want to find out what drew them to the offer in the first place, what tipped them over the edge to buy, what they expected to get/learn, what they actually got/learned, and where they’d like to suggest improvements or upgrades.

Will all of your buyers be Right People? Nope. Not all buyer feedback will be useful for you in developing your brand conversation further.

That’s why it’s even more important to intimately know your Right Person — the person whose core needs and developmental desires sync up perfectly with what you have to offer, in the way you offer it.

He or she really is out there. In fact, there’s not just ONE Right Person out there for you, there are thousands of ‘hims’ or ‘hers’ hoping — in the back of their minds, if not at the forefront — to find a conversation online like the one you are uniquely designed and equipped to create and hold.

The question is: will you do it? Will you bring it?

If you’ve been following The Voice Bureau for a while, you know that I (Abby) deliver a high level service called Empathy Marketing, along with my collaborative partner, searchologist Tami Smith.

We launched the service right before the New Year 2013 and have had the awesome pleasure of unveiling Empathy Marketing strategies to 16 high integrity microbusiness owners. We listened closely to their feedback during, immediately after, and months after their time with us concluded. We heard what they told us they wanted more of, what they were empowered to implement immediately, what was most inspiring, and where they needed more support (copywriting!).

And we’ve iterated. We made Empathy Marketing even tighter, more impactful, and more immediately actionable.

We kept all of the best parts in — and made them even better. And we added a few new features we think you’ll truly dig, like ready-to-go titles for your 101-style articleseries, and grab-and-go examples of how to work deep metaphors into your copy that will speak directly to your Right Person’s core needs.

We think you’ll love looking at your business this way, and getting to know your Right Person by standing in his or her shoes. If you’re ready, please take a look at the NEW Empathy Marketing.

We’re currently booking new clients, one per week. Book soon to ensure the Start Week of your choice.

In the comments, Tami and I would love to hear:

What have you learned from surveying your own readers? Have you found a question that’s yielded particularly insightful responses? What have you NOT been able to learn about your Right People, so far?

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