This week on the S.O.B. (small owned business) marketing podcast, Vivian and I are talking about another common marketing acronym, UVP, or unique value proposition. We discuss what exactly UVP is, how it can HELP your small businessโs marketing, and how to identify your unique value proposition.
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Chapters:
00:00 Introduction (Please Leave us a Review)
00:56 Understanding Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
12:00 How UVP Influences Marketing Strategy
18:25 Steps to Identify Your UVP
27:30 TLDL; Understanding UVP and How It Can Help Your Marketing
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*Intro*
Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Chelsea: UVP.
Vivian: Yeah. You know me. I love it. Chelsea. You dropped us right into the topic for today. What are we discussing?
Chelsea: We're talking about unique value proposition.
Vivian: Have you guys heard this as small business owners? Because interestingly enough, Chelsea and I went to school for marketing and this is one of those big marketing terms that everyone tosses around, but I don't know if it's actually something that small business owners take the time to do in 2026.
Chelsea: Yeah, that's a great question. I feel like UVP is relevant, but it's not necessarily talked about the way it is in our circles. In marketing school and college classes, you talk about unique value proposition. I feel like it's still relevant, but the way that small business owners go about it is a little different.
Vivian: Yeah. All right. Well, so Chelsea, do you have a hot take today before we dive into it.
Chelsea: Before we dive into UVP? Yes, I do have a hot take. Okay, Vivian. I don't know what my opinion is yet.
Vivian: You better form it real fast.
Chelsea: Well, it's more that I have a question. I want us to talk about this. What do you think Vivian comes first, your product or your target audience? A lot of people say when you're creating a small business, you need to figure out who your target audience is so you can create the perfect product for them. Then other people say you have a product, you have an idea, now go out there and find your target audience. Which one is it?
Vivian: Yeah. So let me say it like this. I think it depends on the business owner. I think I said something at the end of the last episode that was kind of funny, not funny, but kind of true. I said, we don't think there's a right way to do something. There's just a way.
Chelsea: Well, yes. Okay. Yeah.
Vivian: The reason I say this is people start small businesses for various reasons. You have the artist who wants to basically die in the paint and they're like, I want to make this.
Chelsea: I love that.
Vivian: They're like, I want to make this my life's work and I want to be able to have a-
Chelsea: Let me tell you, if I was a good artist, I would die in the paint.
Vivian: I mean, if that's your livelihood, then you have the product. You're just looking now for the right target audience. The people that like your art and want to buy it. Or you could be a small business owner that came across a problem and you found a solution, right? Then you have the solution or actually you have the target audience first, because you're trying to help the people that like you were having this problem. What comes to mind is something really silly, well, it's not silly. You mamas out there and daddies out there who potentially have babies, toddlers who were eating from a high chair. There was one mother who, I guess children like to throw these little mats or whatever their food was on, they would throw the bowls and stuff. She made stuff that had like suction cups and mats that they would stick to. Then the baby couldn't toss the item, you know, all over the place.
Chelsea: Or you made a real strong baby.
Vivian: I mean, maybe you made like a Herculean baby. So that is true. Quit having Herculean babies and this won't be a problem. Quit forcing your baby to deadlift and this won't be a problem.
But no, so that's a problem that you're satisfying for a very particular audience. So it could be, it's not necessarily a chicken and egg question. It's just whichever comes first for you when you start the small business.
Chelsea: Thank you, Vivian, for giving, because I was thinking, this is like a chicken or the egg thing. Like you could go either way, but really, yeah, it's wherever you started.
Vivian: People have different motives for starting small businesses.
Chelsea: Yeah, there's no wrong or right way. Just a way.
Vivian: Just a way. All right, so Chelsea, today we are going to answer these questions specifically. What is unique value proposition? How it affects your marketing and how to find yours? Because once you're like, okay, I get it, now how do I go about finding mine?
Chelsea: Exactly, okay, let's start with what is-
Vivian: I feel like Dora the Explorer?
Chelsea & Vivian: Dora, Dora, Dora the Explorer.
Chelsea: I love it.
Let's start with what is your unique value proposition, Vivian? It is why a customer should choose you over your competitors. That's really at the end of the day is what it is. It's your clear statement that communicates the value of your product or service.
Vivian: I wanted to bring this home by saying something very specific. This is-
Chelsea: She's going off script.
Vivian: Yeah. This is a little bit of, it's not tough love, but I want it to be a realization that you have. The reason unique value propositions I think are so important is, start with the idea of, or answer the simple question, do you trust people enough to take the time in today's day and age to research your product, your service, your business enough to be able to answer that for themselves?
Chelsea: No.
Vivian: No. I'm not saying this, our customers are super bright consumers. Consumers have all of the tools available to them to do the research, but they just won't. We're having to spoon feed them that. We're, exactly what Chelsea said. How do you stand out from your competition and how or why should people choose you over them?
Chelsea: Yeah, yeah. That's exactly what this is. I have an example in case this sounds a little vague. DuckDuckGo. That's the internet browser, correct? Their UVP is "the search engine that doesn't track you".
Vivian: Yes. So for people who are looking for something with a little more privacy, right? They want to be sure that they're not being tracked through all these cookies and all this stuff online. That is high priority to them. This is the perfect internet browser for them.
Chelsea: Yeah, and it's very straightforward, very short, very clear and concise.
Vivian: So glad you brought this up because I also wanted to just remind people this isn't a mission statement. This isn't a tagline. Maybe we can have the conversation when we talk about how you go about finding yours, but I do have an analogy that I want people to think about whenever they're crafting their UVP.
Chelsea: Your UVP does not need flowery language, kind of like you just said. This is not a tagline or a mission statement. It just needs to clearly state how you are different. If it can be quantifiable, that's amazing. It needs to be specific, it needs to be relevant. If you can make it tangible, important.
Vivian: Yeah, there are three things that I would say you want it to check off the boxes. You want your UVP to be clear. You want it to be specific. Okay. And you want it to be credible.
Chelsea: That's important. I like that you mentioned credible.
Vivian: You want it to be true. Okay, so just really quickly. Clear. Essentially, you want maybe like a 10, 12 year old to understand what it is. When you explain it to someone, we want everybody to understand exactly what your UVP is. Specific. We want it to speak to the target audience that you're looking or the problem you're looking to solve. Then the credible part, obviously we don't want you lying out there because it needs to be true. Yeah, because we're going to lock you up. Maybe the IRS won't lock you up, but we'll lock you up for being little liars.
Chelsea: Yes, we will.
Vivian: On your unique value proposition.
Chelsea: But again, that's why I picked DuckDuckGo as an example for this conversation, because I think they did that perfectly. It's so short, it's straightforward. "The search engine that doesn't track you."
Vivian: Can I give everybody a challenge?
Chelsea: I guess.
Vivian: Yeah. I want to challenge you guys to not use ChatGPT or OpenAI or any chat bot for this. Let's not use-
Chelsea: This is music to my ears. It's, Vivian's coming around to the dark side. I'm a AI hater. She's going to become an AI hater. This is great. No, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Vivian: We're rising against the machines.
Chelsea: We're raging against the machines.
Vivian: We're raging against the machines. I say this just because if we want to stick to true UVP where Chelsea suggested that we don't need flowered-flowery language, we don't need to make it overly compli- complicated.
Chelsea: This was me last episode with Tampa on tampon.
Vivian: I'm sorry. It doesn't need to be overly complicated. It needs to be simple. It needs to be straight to the point. Then I think using AI is just going to do the opposite. So let's use our human brains to try to come up with our unique value proposition because we are speaking to other humans when we share this.
Chelsea: Yes, and for ChatGPT or any of these AI chat bots to give you a good enough answer or response, give you a good UVP, you're already going to have to do everything that we tell you to do to do it yourself.
Vivian: Yes, you're going to have to prompt it very detailed and specifically to get ideas out of it. So why not just do it yourself? I mean, you can tweak this as you go. You're not bound by any one thing. If you later on think, hey, I can make my unique value proposition a little stronger, great.
But can we talk about what it's going to affect Chelsea? So I know what a unique value proposition is now. If maybe I'm thinking, OK, I understand it, convince me why.
Chelsea: Why should I even bother? Okay, Vivian. It is related to everything. Everything in marketing is related. That's my number one thing that I wrote on here. Obviously, I'm going to explain better. To start off, everything in marketing is related. One thought. So UVP, it's going to act as a foundation because we clearly defined what our products, services, how it's better or different than our competitors. That is something that you need to know. It is the foundation for all of your marketing. One. Two, it's going to help you with your target audience because when you can clearly define what your product or service does and how it's different, that's going to help you to find the people and easily attract the people that care about that difference.
Again, going back to DuckDuckGo, search engine that doesn't track you. Your target audience are the people that don't want to be tracked. It's that simple.
Vivian: Well, and because you're saying this is integrated into the foundation and it does affect everything from that. That means your ad copy, you guys want to do an ad on a Spotify podcast. For one, you knowing your unique value proposition is going to tell you, it's really quickly going to tell you which podcast it would be a good idea to actually advertise on. The other one would be, now I kind of know how to tailor my language in the ad itself. Right? Because I am clearly stating what sets me apart or what makes me different. Then it's going to be easy to lean in and to actually create all those digital assets or ad copy that I need.
Chelsea: Absolutely. Your UVP is going to be that foundation. I want to bring something up before we move on. Earlier I said, it helps you to find your product or service and how it is better slash different. I prefer the word different.
Vivian: Yes.
Chelsea: We're not saying we're better than anyone, but we're serving different things. Okay. Is DuckDuckGo better than Google? I mean, who's to say?
Vivian: It's preference.
Chelsea: Technology wise, who's to say? It's just preference. It's better for you if you don't want to be, if you care about your privacy. It's just a different option.
Vivian: Yeah. Listen, there are 20-gajillion marketing podcasts out there. I'm hopeful that the reason, part of the reason that you tuned into ours is because we're not stuffy. I get to be a big sister picking on a little sister. So hopefully you somehow relate to that, or maybe you don't have a little sister and you want to pick on my little sister, go ahead.
Chelsea: Okay, wait a sec.
Vivian: No, but you see what I'm saying? There's always preference in stuff. I like that you said that. So you prefer to, instead of using the word, what makes you better than your competition, you prefer what makes you different than your competition. Excellent asterisk.
Chelsea: You kind of already mentioned this, but I want to bring it up again. Your UVP is going to guide your strategy in your content because you want your target audience to know what your UVP is. So you want to make sure that it's included in your messaging. You want to make sure that you are explaining what differentiates your brand. Whether that's going to be like website copy, whether it's email marketing, you're going to be constantly bringing up your UVP.
Vivian: Also, you could get a little creative with this. Okay. I was reading one of my old marketing books from back when I went to college.
Chelsea: So cute.
Vivian: Back in 1774.
Chelsea: Before the founding of America?
Vivian: I was studying marketing back then. No, and in there, there was a quote that basically was, it reminded me of something. It said, data is very good and very useful in marketing. However, don't forget that there are things that you can't put a number to, right? So that's the part of marketing that's like, fun and I think mystical.
Chelsea: Mystical, okay.
Vivian: Yeah, and the reason I bring that up is another way to get your UVP across could be through the imagery that you're using, the video that you're taking. The reason I bring this up is one of our S.O.B. community members, Julia, who owns Heartcore Outdoors. It's a clothing brand. It's an apparel company. She has a very specific person that her apparel company is for. She relates a lot of that through the video that she takes and the reels that she posts. Yes, it's just as much about the verbiage she uses in the caption, in the hook, in the way that she's addressing people and the content she's sharing, but it's also very much a visual thing where she's drawing a certain type of person in through the video that she's sharing.
Chelsea: I love that example.
Vivian: Be creative about it. You can project your UVP in so many different ways.
*S.O.B. Community Ad*
Vivian: This episode of the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is brought to you by the S.O.B. Community. If you are a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted time and money on marketing help that didn't deliver. Or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/sob to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's S-K-O-O-L dot com slash sob.
*End of S.O.B. Community Ad*
Chelsea: Let's get into the juicy part. How to find your UVP. I want to preface this by saying I'm listing these steps. This is not necessarily in order because it all relates to one another.
Vivian: I feel like our marketing advice is chaotic.
Chelsea: I know, right? We're always like, it's kind of everywhere.
Vivian: Anarchy, do whatever you want. There are no rules.
Chelsea: What I was about to say is there's no right or wrong way to do this. People give you a list. They say follow these steps. Honestly, you don't have to because the steps-
Vivian: I mean, for some stuff- I would not take this advice from someone who is not good at baking. Okay? Because-
Chelsea: That's not why I'm not good at baking!
Vivian: She does not follow instructions in order. You guys, don't.
Chelsea: I don't. I do it in order. The problem is I don't measure things.
Vivian: See, she does not follow simple instructions. No, for this in particular.
Chelsea: Yes, for this in particular, because when I start giving you the steps, you're going to be like, oh, it all kind of relates to one another.
First, who is your target audience and their pain points? This is what I mean. I'm saying start with your target audience, but like you could start with your product. It's up to you. Where do you want to start? I think you should maybe base this off of where you started as a business. Did you start, like Vivian was explaining at the beginning. Did you start with a problem in a target audience that you needed to create a product to solve the issue? Or did you have a product and now you're looking for your target audience? Whichever one, that's where I would start.
You can't do this next one first, which is look at your competitors. Don't start there. Look at your competitors in terms of how they are different from you. We're not doing a comparison game. We're not trying to say, oh my God, they're better than me at this or that. Again, there's no better. There's just different. Look at how you are different from your competitors.
Now we're going to identify your unique strength. What about your product or your service is different and how it benefits your target audience? Vivian, the word benefit is very important. I want you guys to think about benefits and not features.
Vivian: Yeah. Benefits would be how it affects the other person or how it improves their life, as opposed to just listing a feature of it. Cars do this. That's probably one of the easiest examples we can use. They can always list the features, right? So for example, if I wanted to buy a camping van, I would want to make sure it has X, Y, and Z on there. I have enough room for all this stuff that I want to take with me, blah, blah. The type of engine it has, those are the features. However, the benefit is that I am now untethered to a house and I can actually go out and explore the world, have a place to sleep without having to bunk in a hotel room. Those are the benefits, right? It opens up another adventure door for me.
Chelsea: It's kind of like you're focusing on the consumer. Less about your product. That's, that's the key here. It's about your target audience.
Vivian: Absolutely.
Chelsea: Next we're going to sit down and we're going to think about what the core problem is that we're solving for our target audience and what is the desired outcome. So let's go back to DuckDuckGo. Their core problem was that people wanted more privacy because you're being constantly tracked when you're on the internet. Core problem.
Vivian: Well, and do we want to share a simple formula?
Chelsea: Absolutely. Let's hear it.
Vivian: All right, so using everything that you said and just laid out, I think one of the easiest things you could use is a sentence that's like, I help (insert specific target audience) achieve (insert specific result, problem you're solving) by (and then listing the very specific or unique method or approach that you have). You can use that just very simply. Now granted, you don't want to make it over complicated, but you can kind of tweak that as you want.
Chelsea: Okay. I love that. So that was the last step is draft it, you know, test it. Your UVP is not set in stone. You can change it later on. You might come up with something now and then later on in two, three years, it's irrelevant. You're allowed to change. That's fine.
Vivian: Yeah, just remember we talked about, you want it to be clear, specific and credible. Now the example that I wanted to use, if it's still kind of, you're like, unique value proposition.
Chelsea: Can I say something real quick?
Vivian: Yeah.
Chelsea: I'm wrong. You do need to do these steps in order, I think. I take it back. I've retroactively said, probably do this in order. Yeah.
Vivian: So one of the examples I want to give, and it's kind of like a very silly example, but I was thinking about this.
Chelsea: Is it insurance?
Vivian: No, it's not insurance. It's clowns.
All right, so the way I like to think about this is let's say you're going to a networking event, all right? The networking event is very busy. It's got a ton of people and you're like, this is wonderful, and you are a clown. You're like, great, I'm going to go make connections with event planners so that way-
Chelsea: I'm going to go honk my red nose.
Vivian: So that way people can book me for parties, events, so and so, right? For my magic, all that good stuff.
Chelsea: Clowns don't do magic, but go ahead.
Vivian: I mean, they can. Maybe that's your UVP. But one of the things visually, you're at this event and let's say that you look out and suddenly you realize you're like 1 of 10 clowns there.
Chelsea: Oh my God. It's a good thing you do magic.
Vivian: I mean, there are 10 other clowns there. What, how are you going to set yourself apart when someone comes up and basically says, what do you do? You can't just say, I'm a clown, because everyone's going to be like, yeah, I know what that is. I get the general gist, but ways that even something as basic as that, you could create a unique value proposition would be to look at a couple of things. What is the experience? Perhaps you're a clown that is specifically geared towards kids with sensory issues. So that's something that I bring up in the networking is the fact that my UVP is centered around bringing joy to children with sensory issues. Or perhaps it's the parent experience. So maybe you are geared towards making parents laugh and kids laugh. So it's family-friendly comedy, but it's also engaging enough for the parents that are at the parties. Or maybe it's the reliability. You're never late. Maybe you're consistent X, Y, and Z. You could lean into that. Or the other one is maybe it's in the services that you deliver all in one. So maybe you say, I do all of it. I do the balloon animals. I do magic. I do everything. Even with something as simple as being a clown where everyone understands the just of what that entails. There are ways for you to create a unique value proposition that is going to set you apart from these other 10 clowns that are in the room. That's why you want to create a unique value proposition, okay? So it doesn't matter what industry you're in. You can find what sets you apart. Like Chelsea says, it's not about being better than anybody else. It's about what is different about you.
Chelsea: Vivian, that was actually a great example. I was worried when you said clowns, but that was brilliant. I loved it. Okay. So yes, UVP. I think we're at the end of this conversation, Vivian. So I'm going to do the TLDL. So many letters today. UVP, TLDL...
Vivian: Yeah, you know me.
Chelsea: Okay, so this is too long, didn't listen. If you skipped ahead to this chapter, I'm going to give you a short summary about what we about talked today, but you really want to listen to the entire conversation, because it'll make more sense that way.
Today we talked about UVP, unique value proposition. It is a clear, specific, and credible very important one, and credible statement that's going to help you stand out and show your target audience how you are different from your competitors. Today we dive deep into what UVP is, how it affects your marketing, and how to find yours. So listen to this entire conversation. Also want to say, if you're not watching, Vivian and I look fly today.
Vivian: Speak for yourself.
Chelsea: I got our trucker hat on. It says SOB, small owned business on it. Vivian has our SOB, small owned business shirt on. We're repping our merch because we want you to know that we have merch and that you can go get some.
Vivian: Yeah, and this is kind of like a choose your own adventure. Decide how you want to support the podcast. So either you can buy merch, you can leave us or rate us right on whatever-
Chelsea: Leave us, leave us a review. Don't leave. Please continue to listen to this podcast.
Vivian: Leave us a review or rate us depending on what platform you're on, or you can send us $5 or whatever amount monetary donation that you want over to buymeacoffee.com/sob marketing.
Chelsea: Yeah, that helps us keep the lights on. Can you see we had to turn off the light?
Vivian: Alright, and-
Chelsea: Go be the best SOB you can be.