What's your story?

Hello, hello, to the Blasters of Green!

Today, I’m doing a thing that I HATE.

Well, it’s not dipping my genitals into a bucket of scorpions. (Never again. Not for a third time.)

Instead, I’m taking a common entrepreneurial acronym, and CHANGING it to suit my own purposes!

I know, disgusting.

You see this kind of stuff all the time on LinkedIn:

“Instead of ‘MVP’ meaning ‘Minimum Viable Product,’ I call it:

Minimum viable PERSON. ”

But today, I’m becoming everything I used to hate. Because today, I’m turning:

“Unique Selling Proposition” or “USP” into:

“Unique Story & Perspective.”

Pathetic. I’ve even added an ampersand.

BUT. Here’s why:

Unique Selling Proposition, or USP, means the thing that’s different about your product that makes people choose it over competitors’.

Entrepreneurs are told constantly by mentors to make this clear for themselves, their customers, and potential investors.

Because if YOU don’t know what makes your product unique, how can you stand out from the crowd in your sales and marketing?

What makes people buy your product?

This is very important advice. I’ve had to learn it a million times over, and to be honest I struggle every day with refining my unique selling proposition.

However, there’s one thing that makes this a whole lot easier:

Shifting your focus from your PRODUCT to its FOUNDER.

In other words, YOU.

Instead of focusing all your energy on your unique selling proposition, spend some time developing your unique STORY & PERSPECTIVE.

This is really fucking hard to get entrepreneurs to agree to do.

“I hate self-promotion.”

“I don’t wanna post on LinkedIn.”

“The product should speak for itself.”

“I’d rather stay behind the scenes, thank you.”

Hey, guess what?

WE ALL WOULD.

NOBODY likes blabbing on about themselves online all day.

Unless you’re a narcissist, in which case, I’ll see you at the convention.

But seriously, I would rather not put myself out there by sharing content and posting personal stories and videos of myself. It’s scary, and frankly a lot of fucking work.

But I know that no matter how unique I think my PRODUCT is, the TRULY unique thing about me, the thing on which no one can compete with me, is my STORY and my PERSPECTIVE.

My story is unique, because everyone’s is. Same goes for my perspective.

There are a ton of public speaking coaches out there. Some of them are just as good as I am (hard to believe, I know), and many have more experience, connections, money, etc.

But none of them know what I know, and see things the way I do, because they haven’t lived through what I have.

So all I have to do is:

• Share often

• Share honestly

• Share vulnerably

And I create a “USP” that makes me irreplaceable.

Getting clear on my unique story & perspective, and putting it into my sales and marketing means that anyone who likes my story, and sees things the way I do, will want to work with me over someone:

1. whose story they don’t know as well

2. who sees things differently than they do

I lose speaking gigs and coaching contracts all the time to competitors. But I also get a ton of work that just appears, in my inbox, because someone saw a video or looked me up on LinkedIn.

So, if you’re an entrepreneur (or anyone trying to sell anything in the 21st century):

Think about your story:

• What have you been through?

• What did that teach you?

• What significant life events led you to do your current work?

• And made you who you are?

Once you’ve identified the key events & lessons, ask yourself:

• How has your life story shaped your perspective?

• What do you believe, that maybe others in your industry don’t, because of your life experience?

• What opinions do you hold that are contrarian, but are explainable?

Get these down, on paper, on social media, on video. Start sharing often, honestly, and vulnerably, and watch people start to flock to you.

That’s it for this week!

Please reply HUMAN if you’re out there.

Greenblast… out.🚀

P.S. For entrepreneurs interested, my next Pitch Workshop on March 20th at OneEleven is filling up, click here for more details!

P.P.S. I finally did it! I listened more than I talked on a coaching call and had zero monlogues: 😅