What are your personal USPs?

I speak to senior BDMs on a daily basis about the possibility of making a move or about potential roles in IT sales. Many of them are selling solutions valued in the millions and often tens of millions. When I do a more formal interview I ask them all one question - "What are your USPs as a salesperson?"

Invariably I get these two from almost everyone:
 - Strong communication skills
 - Ability to build strong relationships

Let's face it, you wouldn't be selling at the level you are if those two were not your key strengths. But I wouldn't consider them UNIQUE Selling Points. I've heard USP pitches from many companies about their products and from many sales people about their abilities and everyone seems to confuse unique selling points with strengths.

Your strengths are the reason that your product or service is worth buying. Your USPs are the reason someone should buy from you instead of someone else. When it comes to your company, you should know the answer to questions like: Why should I take your $3000/day enterprise architects to run with this project, instead of someone else's $3000/day enterprise architects? Why should I take your 5 year service contract with a $5M TCV instead of your competitors?

But when a company is choosing who to hire you should be able to answer a similar question about yourself: Why would I hire you instead of someone with identical experience?

The problem comes to me all the time. A sales person thinks they are the greatest and that they can definitely sell XYZ company's solution yet they've never sold anything like it before and worse they are competing against people who have. So why on earth would they hire you? And if you are interviewing for a role you are likely competing with people who look exactly like you on paper. If the best you have to differentiate yourself is "Strong communication skills" or "Strong relationship building skills", you will lose out.

So go deeper with your answer. WHY do you build better relationships than other sales people? Why are you more likely to get facetime with a decision maker than someone else? Why are you more effective in communicating with people than other sales people? Why do you understand technical people, c-level stakeholders and internal & external stakeholders?

Here are some good answers to these questions:
"I started by career in a technical capacity, but I've also run my own successful business so I intricately understand both technical and also business critical thinking."

"My address book is filled with the phone numbers of CIOs and CEOs of multiple blue-chip companies with whom I regularly have dinner and play golf"

"I just understand how things work. When you take a reference from one of my clients they will back me up in saying that I understood their business, their needs and their pain points and that I picked all this up quickly"

Your USPs just have to be 'unique enough' that the person you're competing with for that role isn't going to have the same abilities, reach or understanding. So what are your personal USPs? Imagine you were sitting opposite Bill Gates, Larry Page, Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch or perhaps a new up-and-coming CEO and entrepreneur. Why would they be stupid not to hire you to grow their business?