How Usain Bolt’s horn could make you money

» By MichaelMoneyMaker | the 01-27-2010 at 12:57 | 26 views (15 unique) | 1 comment | Report post!

What I found interesting and quite amazing at the carnival, from a purely business point of view, was just how many people had hit upon this niche - selling whistles and horns. Virtually every couple of yards you’d find another chap selling the same neon whistles or red gold and green horns. Pretty soon you do become saturated, after the 10th whistle seller, you stop noticing and you’re not going to be buying a whistle anytime soon. It’s the same for any business, selling any product. You’ll probably find a lot of other people trying to get in on the same action as you. And after a customer has seen so many of the same things, they start to ignore them. To push your product/service above the competition, to get back the interest and to grab those potential customers who have started to ignore you, you need to identify a unique selling point (USP). We’ve talked many times about USPs and there’s a reason. Having a USP is absolutely KEY to making your business successful and making you money. At the carnival I saw a somewhat ridiculous but almost perfect example of identifying a USP... I had seen SO many I started to not notice the horn sellers. But then: bang, one guy caught my ear. ‘Get Usain Bolt’s horns here. These are no ordinary horns: these are Usain Bolt’s horns!’ That wasn’t exactly what he was shouting but it’s pretty close. The important thing is that it caught my attention and, as I looked round, it had caught the attention of the other passers-by as well. Usain Bolt’s horns. Of course, the claim was nonsense, but despite that the guy’s tongue-in-cheek sales pitch is an almost perfect example of how to successfully identify a USP...
** The USP is simple – These are Usain Bolt’s horns, it can’t get any simpler.
** The USP is timely – Having won big at the Olympics and broken world records, Usain Bolt is in people’s minds.
** The USP is associative – Usain Bolt is the best at what he does, therefore these horns must be the best.
** The USP is believable – This is where this guy falls down – why would Usain Bolt sell endorsed horns? You should aim to make your USP believable.
(An unbelievable USP can work in some situations, but it’s difficult to judge and often not worth the risk. In this case the guy selling the horns knows they aren’t Usain Bolt’s and so do I. But because he knows I know, I don’t feel as though I’m being lied to in a nasty way. It’s a playful idea, a shared joke, so I’m more likely to buy a horn from him because of it.) Whether you’re looking to start your own home business or if you’re developing an existing business, if you can identify a niche and apply the simple business model we looked at in the first section and if you make sure your USP meets the four criteria above, you’ll find your business is in a very strong position.