Never Miss New Tips
  • Start Here
  • About
  • Archives
  • Contact
Life Optimizer - Life Optimizer -

Career Tips: How to Find Your (Potential) Unique Value Proposition

Purpose/Working

One of the strategic questions you should ask yourself is: “What can I be best in the world at?”. Being able to answer this question will make you thrive in your career. But of course, answering this question is not easy. In essence, it requires you to find your unique value proposition. What value can you contribute to the world that can’t be given by other people?

To make yourself unique, Dilbert’s Career Advice has good advice: Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things and combine them. It is this combination that makes you unique.

In this post, I’d like to share some tips on how to figure out your potential unique value proposition. While they may not give you the final answer, at least they will give you an idea of which direction to go.

The best starting point, I believe, is not your competences, but passions. There are two reasons for this:

  1. Your passions are more or less “hardwired” to your unique personality. You need to discover them.
  2. When you are passionate about a niche, it will be easier to develop competence in it.

So here are five steps to help you figure out your potential unique value proposition:

1. List your passions

First of all, you should recognize your multiple passions. I’m sure everyone has multiple passions; it’s just a matter of discovering them. How do you know whether or not something is your passion? Here is a test:

Can you be so absorbed in it that you lose track of time?

If the answer is yes, then it’s your passion. Of course, this question is just a simple tool to help you discover your passions. You can always discover your passions in other ways.

List as much of your passions as possible. The more passions you list, the more possible combinations you could get.

As an example, here I list three passions:

  • Writing
  • Science
  • Animation creation

I will use these passions as example in the following steps.

2. Choose one passion as the basis

Now that you have your list of passions, choose one of them as the basis for subsequent steps. Though it’s up to you to choose, a good candidate might be the one that you are most passionate about.

For example, from the three passions above I choose science.

3. Pair it with other passions and see what ideas you can get

With one passion as the basis, now you should try to pair it with other passions in your list. Then look at what ideas you can get from the pairs.

For example, I pair science with the other two passions and get these ideas:

  • Science + writing: Blogging about science.
  • Science + animation creation: Creating scientific animations.

4. Pick the idea which is most promising

From the ideas you get, you should choose the one that is most promising. These three questions can help you decide:

  • In which one do you think you can make the most difference?
    The greater the impact you can potentially create, the greater your chance to succeed.
  • Which one are you most passionate about?
    Passion is important because it will keep you motivated in the long journey required to succeed.
  • Has the niche been saturated?
    If it’s saturated then your chance to succeed is limited.

Consider all these questions and decide which idea is the most promising.

From the two pairs in my example, I choose ‘blogging about science’.

5. Look at the other passions and find what value-add they may give

While the previous step helps you figure out your potential niche, this step helps you figure out the unique twist you can give. It helps you differentiate from the other players in your niche.

Simply look at the other passions which are not included in your chosen idea and think of the possible value-add from them.

In my example, the passion which is not included in the idea is animation creation. Then the question is: how can animation creation add value to ‘blogging about science’? An idea that comes to my mind is creating scientific animation as part of the blog posts. Or maybe creating a special section in the blog for animations. This will make the science blog unique.

At this point, you have figured out your potential niche and your potential differentiation. These define your potential unique value proposition. If you want, you can repeat this process by choosing other passions as your basis in step 2.

The next steps

After figuring out your potential unique value proposition, there are essentially two things you should do:

  1. Develop the required competences
    You already have the passions; you should then develop the competences. This is where you should be “greedy” to acquire intellectual capital for your dream (lesson #21 in 37 Lessons to Help You Live a Life that Matters).
  2. Market your unique value proposition
    Having good competences is useless if people do not know that you can meet their needs. It’s your job to make them aware of your capabilities.

Published on September 5, 2007

Never Miss New Tips

Get practical tips on personal effectiveness. Join over 10,000 subscribers.

Previous Post
Links for 2 September 2007
Next Post
First Anniversary of Life Optimizer

Donald Latumahina

You May Also Like

Preparing Yourself for a Great 2021
October 31, 2020

Preparing Yourself for a Great 2021

What Is Happiness? A Definition of Happiness
October 17, 2020

What Is Happiness? A Definition of Happiness

A Key to Adventure: Reimagining Your Life
September 29, 2020

A Key to Adventure: Reimagining Your Life

Living an Adventurous Life
September 18, 2020

Living an Adventurous Life

How to Become Adaptable in Uncertain Times
July 24, 2020

How to Become Adaptable in Uncertain Times

How to Reinvent Yourself: A Quick Guide
May 2, 2020

How to Reinvent Yourself: A Quick Guide

Comments (16)

  1. Hi Donald,
    I have been reading our blog for a few months, so I was happy to see it on Priscilla Palmer’s self development blog list.

    Jenny and I have decided to try to help build the self development community. So we are holding a little contest. I would like to invite you, and anyone else interested, to find out more details at Win a $25 Gift Certificate.

    Erin - September 5, 2007
  2. Hey Donald,

    Another fine article to use as a guide in finding our uniqueness! Great value and well organized :)

    Cheers
    James

    James - Visualized.Feel.Abundance - September 5, 2007
  3. Great post, Donald. I really like your writing. Clean and professional. By the way, I run a Careers Article Directory and if you have some articles for distribution, you are very welcome to post them.
    Regards,
    Alex
    http://www.smarthowto.com

    Alex - September 7, 2007
  4. Another way of wording your unique value proposition would be to term it your personal brand. One of the best ways to market your personal brand is through utilizing such tools and blogs and social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook (careful not to waste to much time here). Just remember, one of the keys to building the value of any brand is consistency. Remember that when adding content to the web!

    Justin

    Justin Davey - September 7, 2007
  5. Erin, James, and Alex,
    Thanks for your kind words!

    Erin,
    I’m not sure whether or not I will join but I will definitely check it out. Thanks for letting me know.

    Alex,
    I’ve never submitted any article to article directories but that’s definitely something to consider. I’m glad to know that you run one.

    Justin,
    I agree, consistency is very important in building our personal brand. We may be tempted to put more things in our branding message, but that will just confuse people.

    Donald Latumahina - September 7, 2007
  6. […] 4) Life Optimizer – Donald takes a new approach to the "finding your path" process with his idea of combining more than one idea. Check out his post Career Tips: How to Find Your (Potential) Unique Value Proposition. […]

    Self Improvement and Law of Attraction Link Love, Volume 29 | Today is that Day - September 14, 2007
  7. […] Career Tips: How to Find Your (Potential) Unique Value Proposition – Life Optimizer […]

    A Long Long Road » Should You Change Your Job For A HUGE Increment - November 10, 2007
  8. […] What is the value you can offer that can’t be offered by anyone else? The answer to this question is the foundation of your personal branding effort. While it might not be easy to find the answer, the time you spend on it is well worth it. I wrote detail tips about it in Career Tips: How to Find Your (Potential) Unique Value Proposition. […]

    The 10 Immutable Laws of Personal Branding | Life Optimizer - December 11, 2007
  9. […] Career Tips: How to Find Your (Potential) Unique Value Proposition – Life Optimizer […]

    Should You Change Your Job For A HUGE Increment | Anna is Seeking Employment in Budapest - January 7, 2008
  10. […] Career Tips: How to Find Your (Potential) Unique Value Proposition – Life Optimizer […]

    Should You Change Your Job For A HUGE Increment from lawrencecheok.com | Anna is Seeking Employment in Budapest - Career, Jobs, Resume, CV, Work, Money Online, Self Improvement - January 17, 2008
  11. […] What is the value you can offer that can’t be offered by anyone else? The answer to this question is the foundation of your personal branding effort. While it might not be easy to find the answer, the time you spend on it is well worth it. I wrote detail tips about it in Career Tips: How to Find Your (Potential) Unique Value Proposition. […]

    Personal Branding | Enjoy The Process - July 5, 2008
  12. […] ????? ???? ?????????, ?????????? ? ?????? “Career Tips: How to Find Your (Potential) Unique Value Proposition “ ?? ????? […]

    ? ????? ???????? » ??? ????? ???? ????????? - November 17, 2008
  13. […] 4) Life Optimizer – Donald takes a new approach to the "finding your path" process with his idea of combining more than one idea. Check out his post Career Tips: How to Find Your (Potential) Unique Value Proposition. […]

    Self Improvement and Law of Attraction Link Love, Volume 29 : Today Is That Day - March 24, 2009
  14. […] your core competences. A good clue to find them is your passions. You can read more about it on my career tips […]

    How to Make a Company of Yourself - April 20, 2009
  15. […] Read and apply the tips in Career Tips: How to Find Your (Potential) Unique Value Proposition. […]

    How to Make More Money - October 27, 2009
  16. wow!Donald this is a wonderful article.it’s a real eyes opening career tip and a potential discovery article.If u want more of career tip read”Towards Mental Exploit”.

    balogun daniel - November 10, 2011

Recent Posts

Two Life Lessons I Learned From Reading This Kind of War
Two Life Lessons I Learned From Reading This Kind of War
January 13, 2021
Purpose Mastery Is Open: Get a Renewed Sense of Purpose
Purpose Mastery Is Open: Get a Renewed Sense of Purpose
December 22, 2020
What You Need to Thrive in 2021
What You Need to Thrive in 2021
December 17, 2020
Blinkist Black Friday Deal: Get 50% Off
Blinkist Black Friday Deal: Get 50% Off
November 25, 2020
The Steward Mindset: A Key Mindset to Maximize Your Personal Growth
The Steward Mindset: A Key Mindset to Maximize Your Personal Growth
November 24, 2020

Categories

Home | About | Privacy Policy | Contact