What can you learn from a bakery selling Cruffins? Try these 2 top tips to work out your USP

Variety of baked cruffins that made a bakery have it's own USP.

06 Sep What can you learn from a bakery selling Cruffins? Try these 2 top tips to work out your USP

Posted at 14:02h in Business Growth, Marketing by

Last week I was in Cornwall on a family holiday, staying in St Ives, It was a beautiful place, but very busy!

We’d not been to this area before, so I was surprised to see just how many bakery shops there were in the town.

Very excitedly we started to work our way through them, comparing cornish pasties and scones (thank goodness for the uphill walk back to our apartment!).

We ended up with 2 clear favourites; one tiny little place where you got served the best pasties through a tiny window, and the one my daughters loved best: the one selling Cruffins.

We’d not heard of Cruffins before, and if you haven’t either, they are a very sweet and sickly cross between a muffin and a croissant.

Unfortunately, one day I got there in the afternoon and the Cruffins had already sold out.

The Cruffins were really popular, drawing people to the shop, with large queues forming in the morning if you wanted to be sure of getting them.

They were the only bakery selling the Cruffins and I thought, what a clever way to distinguish them from the other many bakeries in St Ives!

So what’s your Cruffin?

In other words, how do you distinguish your business from your competitors? What’s your USP – your unique selling proposition?

Now, this is where lots of business owners churn blah, blah, blah statements, like:

‘We’re professional and deliver great service’ – well who wouldn’t say that?

To really distinguish yourself from your competitors, you need to be saying something different to what they are saying.

You may focus on a specific type of client, a specific type of business or industry, the specific stage a business is at, specific results you deliver or specific problems you solve.

Still struggling to identify your ‘Cruffin’?

Try these 2 top tips:

  1. Look at what your competitors are saying in their marketing material and identify areas that you disagree with.
  2. Ask your clients to describe your business in 3 words.

That should help to get you clearer and make your USP more specific.

It can be tricky to do this by yourself, as you can be too close to your business to step back and see clearly.

It’s why I include exercises on this in my upcoming Impact Business Growth And Leadership Programme.

It’s one of the many practical strategies we cover, along with developing your leadership skills and strengthening your mindset.

You can find out more about this 6 month programme here, or book in a time with me here to discuss if this programme is right for you and your business.

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Alison Bradford

Alison Bradford is a business coach who works with smart, ambitious business owners to get clarity about how they can grow their business and increase profit. Sign up here to learn 6 easy ways you can boost profit in your business today.
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