National Clothesline

o. Not some cranky old cantankerous coot. The S.O.B. I’m referring to is a Statement Of Benefit, also known as a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) or a UCA (Unique Competitive Advantage).

Regardless of what you call it… you’d do well to have one because a well-crafted S.O.B. is extremely powerful. It has the ability to make you shine. It can set you apart from the competition and it can bring new prospects to your door. In fact, an S.O.B. can even help build loyalty!

Today, your customers are being bombarded by more products and services than they can handle. In a state of advertising overload, they simply can’t process all the warring ideas in their heads, so they pick an idea to believe and then hold that notion until some message persuades them to change.

For example, they can’t believe that all drycleaners are pretty much alike then take their clothes to the cheapest one and truthfully convince themselves that they’ve been a wise shopper.

The challenge for you, the drycleaner, is to position yourself to claim the high ground in the prospect’s overloaded head and hold it against the competition. There may be little difference between you and the cleaner down the street, but if you can’t find a way to communicate uniqueness and connect it to the need of your target… you’re just another penguin on the iceberg. You look exactly like everyone else. There’s nothing special about you.

The first step in crafting an S.O.B. is to stake out a position for your business. How will you be perceived as different from your competitor?

To determine this, you might want to consider the top 20 percent of your customer base. You can’t be all things to all people but you can be the cleaner of choice for a select group. So look to your best customers and design a position that matches their particular wants and needs. What advantage can you offer that nobody else can?

Do you characterize customers as more loyal or less loyal nowadays? Do you have no problem getting first-time visitors but find yourself struggling to get the second order? Maybe it’s a matter of poor positioning.

Perhaps you’re positioned for the wrong demographic profile and you don’t even know it. Maybe you happen to be a Rolls Royce cleaner attracting a lot of Geo Prism customers. Sure, they’ll come for the introductory free oil change. But you’re not a good fit and they go elsewhere for continued service.

A good S.O.B. can help eliminate the tire kickers and make your current customers more loyal to you.

Before you can sit down and articulate what your unique benefit is, you have to know the difference between a feature and a benefit. A feature is anything you’ve designed into your service. A benefit is what the customer gets out of it. A feature may be useful but it doesn’t sell. On the other hand, a benefit is a solution to a problem, a fulfillment of a desire. Let me illustrate.

Seven years ago I introduced Zip-Strip rail cover to the industry. It’s made of plastic. It’s tough and durable and it has a low coefficient of friction. These are all features. None is a benefit. But before I could market the product, I had to turn these features into benefits and then from a list of benefits I crafted an S.O.B… from the main benefit. If you read the National Clothesline, you’ve no doubt seen my S.O.B. It’s appeared as the headline in all my ads for the past 84 issues. It not only highlights the prime benefit, it also offers a secondary benefit as well as a guarantee. The S.O.B. I wrote is:

Stops Dirt — Guaranteed,
or it costs you nothing!

Why on earth would I use the same headline for seven years? Because it works!

Consider your strengths and your competitors’ weaknesses. Create a list of the features of your cleaning business then rank them in order of importance as you think your best customers would rank them. Look for benefits associated with the top-ranked features. Maybe you’ve heard customers commenting about a particular feature or service. Maybe they really like the new hand-finished shirt service you’ve started to offer. Find out what got them excited.

As a drycleaner, your statement of benefit must be concise (one to three sentences only) and it should reflect the main advantage you offer. The benefit might have to do with price, guarantee, quality, convenience, flexible hours and so on.

For example, you might offer V.I.P bags right now. It’s an excellent feature of your business, but what is the real benefit? It could be convenience or speed of service or personalized attention. It’s up to you how you wish to characterize that feature of your business.

In addition, once you have decided on an S.O.B., make certain every employee knows what it is and is able to state it. Your marketing campaigns, your marketing plan, and your business plan should surround your statement of benefit.

Not long ago, someone on the cleaner’s forum asked what kinds of advertising messages bring the best response. All types of answers surfaced on this one. Some claimed that “Drop Your Pants Here” was a winner. Which reminded me of a local radiator repair shop in town whose S.O.B. is… “A Nice Place To Take A Leak.”

Be careful. Don’t be too cute or clever. Funny doesn’t always sell. And remember, you will want to put this statement on all your advertising materials as well as on your letterhead and business cards. Also, don’t make empty promises. They’re worthless.

An S.O.B. must be compelling. Lukewarm statements, such as the best shirt around, or the lowest prices, or the fastest service are too vague and too general. Let me illustrate what I mean.

Mr. Kim owns Heritage Cleaners in Hinsdale, IL, and offers top quality spot removal. He could advertise that he does “the best spot removal in the area” but he does much better than that. In fact, he claims that if he can’t get the stain out… nobody else can, either. The benefit Heritage Cleaners offers is this:

“Our spot removal is second to none. We guarantee to remove your stain.
But if we don’t and another cleaners does, we will pay you 10 times the cleaning cost!”

That’s powerful, wouldn’t you agree? By the way, Mr. Kim does well over $1,000,000 across his sales counter. He’s opening a second location and plans to use the same S.O.B. to build sales there as well.

Here’s a good test. If another cleaner can take your advertising piece and replace your name and logo with his, then what you offer is not really special since anyone can easily copy it and use it as their own.

So, if you’re a discount cleaner and you want to make a statement based on price, instead of saying we have the lowest prices, how about giving this a try…

“We guarantee the lowest prices in town
or we will refund you double the difference in cash.”

Writing an effective S.O.B. will compel you to focus on your business. It will force you to “zero in” on what really makes you successful.

Once you are able to accurately identify the greatest benefit you have to offer, you can then begin to emphasize it — and the more emphasis it gets, the better your business will become.

Bill Bishop has been a consultant with the Golomb Group for the past 12 years, designing marketing and promotional programs for drycleaners. He can be reached at the Golomb Group at (800) 679-5856 or by e-mail at billbishop@golombgroup.com.