In my work as an online marketer I get to hear a lot about businesses.

One of the most common topics of conversation is the ‘USP’ (unique selling proposition / point).

There are two key things here:

• Proposition is singular, not plural
• Unique – not the same as anyone else

Yet every time we leave a meeting, the client has provided us with a long list of ridiculous things.

One tourism client I met recently had about 20 ‘USPs’.

One of them was; “beautiful location”.

Unless my client owns paradise I am pretty confident this is inaccurate.

I can forgive the client for not understanding the concept of what a unique selling proposition is but I certainly cannot forgive my colleague who diligently notes down this drivel.

The result of all of this puffery is that we end up with a project brief that weighs in like a novel and contains more waffle than a Dutch bakery.

I recently wrote about the common problems encountered with a project brief and how a ‘binary’ approach should be taken to make it more actionable.

A good place to start using ‘binary’ is with your USP.

One USP we are trying to push with this project.

One clear brief.

One happy team that understands the big picture.