Why should I worry about a unique value proposition for my business?
After all, not all businesses are indeed unique. Many businesses serve a common need such as dry cleaning clothes or providing gas for vehicles.
By Bella Milo and Colleen Spiegel
01 July 2024
However, spending some time and effort on your unique value proposition (UVP) will give you clarity on how to market your business, elaborate on special features, and separate you from your competitors. If you are developing a new product, it will also help you to break into a preliminary market. Determining your UVP will help you to figure out why customers would buy from your business. If you are looking for grants or investors, determining the UVP is critical to obtain funding.
Depending on your product or business, you may need to conduct thorough research and analysis to identify the issues that your product solves. If this is a new product or service, the research could involve academic journals, industry reports, market analyses, and expert interviews, to identify pressing issues within a specific field or industry.
- As part of identifying the problem, evaluate the magnitude of the problem and its potential consequences on society, industries, or specific communities. Assessing the scope and severity of the problem helps in highlighting its significance and urgency.
- If you are working on a grant proposal, pitch deck, or business plan, support the existence and significance of the problem with robust data and evidence. This can include statistical information, case studies, real-life examples, or testimonials from individuals or organizations.
- Another way of having a unique value proposition is to do something better than any company that’s currently on the market. By clearly outlining the value or the advantage that your new product or service will have over existing companies, your customer base could grow based on that.
If you are compiling a business plan or grant proposal, your unique value proposition needs to be clearly presented.
- Start by first introducing what your product or service is and then explaining how it is uniquely positioned on the market to solve a particular problem.
- Provide evidence of how your product or service can benefit society or the local community.
- If you have patents pending, trademarks, or copyrights, elaborate on this fact and explain how the existing patent landscape looks and how the new service or product will fit into the existing patent landscape.
- Explain if you have a first mover advantage or any other advantage that will help to get your product on the market.
Clearly and succinctly describe each of these points so that investors or reviewers do not have to guess about any aspect of the product or service’s value. If anything is unclear in your pitch or proposal, potential investors will get confused, which will make them less likely to invest in your product or service.
The unique value proposition is what makes your business or your product or service different, new, and better. Recognizing the significance of the problem and understanding how your business can provide a solution can help you lay the foundation for a compelling pitch or proposal.
In addressing the problem that your product or service solves, market research can be pivotal to shape your understanding of the industry landscape, which may involve identifying competitors, assessing the market size and growth, and analyzing relevant patents.