Your Personal USP

What is a USP?

Could I be outrageous for just a moment and suggest you have Leela Cosgrove explain a little bit more about how your personal USP will grab attention and captivate curiosity wherever your USP may travel.. on whatever desks your USP may land.

Here is my email to Leela asking her about the need for having a personal USP

Hi Leela

.. I saw your passion as a ghost writer in using that to help build a personal USP using Jay Abrahams.... and I was wondering if I could ask you a question around that? How could it help an IT Contractor market themselves better or would it be a little trickier applying it for them?

Thanks in advance

Here is what Leela had to say

Hi Robert,

It's no more difficult applying a USP to an IT contractor than it is to anyone else ... a Unique Selling Proposition simply outlines the Unique reasons that people should buy from you and not your competitors. In a saturated market like IT it is especially important to distinguish yourself from your competition in the eyes of your clients ...

Contractors ought to market themselves in just the same way a solo service business would.

A personal USP can be an effective resume / interview tool (particularly when accompanied by testimonials). At the same time, gaining the skill of being able to write USP's is going to give you a competitive edge in a project setting - allowing you to communicate the value of what you're doing in a way anyone can understand in less than thirty seconds.

My background:

* A two-time Jay Abraham Ultimate Business Building Bootcamp Graduate

* A Jay Abraham VIP Exponential MasterMind Group Graduate

* Currently a member of the Empowernet Business Mastery Platinum Program

* I write for Jay Abraham Asia Pacific and for Empowernet (who represent Anthony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, etc in Australia).

Leela Cosgrove

Information Product Creation Specialist

0411 482 600

www.leelacosgrove.com

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If you find your resumes are landing in the bin perhaps it might be worth letting Leela look at your resume, and show you how your resume could land on the desk by using a few tips on building a better USP that you use in your resume, bloggs, even social gatherings, OR when standing buy the water cooler with the project manager whose project you really need to be on.

So let us ask you.. to what extent is having a good USP that grabs enough attention to stop your resume from going in the bin and land on the clients desk important?

What does your "Product Development Plan" look like

What high profile, leading edge project is your 'product' getting locked out from?

What are the holes in your 'product'?

How can you be so sure?

What plans have you got to fill them?

Why will your customer accept them?

What makes you so sure?

Most Vulnerable

It must take courage to be a contractor or else more permanents would be contracting...

Its a big step taking your skills, training, knowledge, experience out of an environment that was known to you... and LOSE the support from systems, procedures, people you have come to know and rely on for your success... and bring that into not just one environment but numerous environments, all with their own quirks, where you are not quite certain how your skills, knowledge, training, experience will stack up, perform and deliver to the level, and standard demanded by the people who you don't yet know, who don't yet know you unsure whether your roadshow will hold together.

Additionally this means leaving behind an environment that was set up deliberately to support you, to provide you training, and to ensure you got the right exposure, experience and mentorship to fully cement that training...

leaving that behind for an environment where that is no longer... for an environment where you need to determine the holes in your own roadshow yourself... where no one will prod you... where no one will offer to fill them... where you need to determine how best to plug them yourself... where you need to provide your own training... where you need to access the relevant experience and mentorship opportunities to cement that training in order to be called.. in order to be hired... in order to stop spending longer times on the bench between contracts... indeed to stop your higher rate from evaporating. On top of that you have a taxation office trying to make out you are operating just like an employee.

So taking the big step requires careful consideration with eyes wide open.
(dare I say 'decision'... dare I say knowing your 'values' to avoid making a wrong decision)

Stepping out with your eyes open means knowing you have weaknesses... means knowing what they are.. means knowing how to create opportunities to overcome them and means knowing how to profit from them and is the most effective path that is the path followed by contractors with roadshows that last.

But lets not get ahead of ourselves... lets get back to the beginning... and open our eyes for a second... and ask

where do you think an employee feels most vulnerable, most insecure when stepping out as a contractor?

Whats an hour of your life worth

Speaking to a permanent the other day. He said theres more to life than money. I said I agree but could I ask him a question around that. He said sure. Fire away.

I asked.. "If theres so much more to life than money... then why are you spending so much time chasing it..."?

He asked.. "what do you mean"?

I said.. "Well you mentioned earlier that you spent over 11 hours at work yesterday.... that last week you spent over 80 hours working to meet an out-of-the-blue impossible deadline, that you knew was unnecessary and felt did not even address the real problem... but that you could use the overtime to pay the interest on your credit card bills that you confessed were getting a little out of control.... but that that could not compensate you for your planned weekend away that you missed.... and that you were exhausted by the time you turned off the freeway that you have noticed is getting increasingly congested... and slower and slower making the trip longer and longer with unexpected frustrating jams that caused you to miss the highlight of your sons birthday because of it"..... now correct me if I'm wrong but according to my calculator that adds up to more than a total of 92 precious hours that were about chasing money?

I agreed that the situation over the past week was outside the norm... yet wouldn't it make sense to reduce the hours, reduce spending or to increase the dollar per hour spent at work?

"Well how do I do that"? He asked. "I am already at the top of the payscale for the job I'm doing"?.. "I'm not qualified for anything else"... and ................

BUT enough about my permanent friend... I'm sure you could tell me twenty more stories that easily top that one... Now what about you? How much is an hour of your life worth?