Investigate Who Your Core Customer Is
It is straightforward to make assumptions about who our customer is. Over time, we generalize to serve everyone interested in us. By being more selective, we become paralyzed by the thought of a business slump. I highly advocate spending time to find out who your best customers are. The loyal ones pay you on time, value a relationship vs. a price transaction, and are the ones that you like to serve. These folks are your core. Ask them lots of questions to find out why they love you. We need more of them, right? Study their demographics, their motivations, and why they value your business. De-emphasize the customers that don’t fit your model. They aren’t who you should spend your time and effort on.
Write Out Your Client’s Fears & Frustrations
This is a hard one for us, but it is so important. Put yourself in their shoes. What are they afraid of when considering hiring or doing business with you? What’s in their thought bubbles? Why are they frustrated by companies in your industry? Write it down and ponder how well you perform against their fears.
Honestly Assess Your Competition
Pick the top three of your competitors and write out their strengths and weaknesses. Then, find the one or two competitors in your space doing business differently than the rest. They tend to be newer businesses exploiting a piece of the market you should respect.
Painstakingly Decide What You Do Well or Should
Write out the list of what you do well for your best customers. Here’s a short list to help you think:
Find the Hole in the Market that Will Help in Differentiating Your Business
Go back to the fears & frustrations section above and figure out what they aren’t finding and what they fear. Compare that to what you and your competitors are doing well and poorly. The gap is right in front of you. If you can’t find a niche you can dominate, call your favorite Business Coach to help you figure out where you can dominate. We might even need to invent a niche.
Craft Your Unique Specialist Proposition
You won’t have a USP until you write it and wordsmith it into a powerful, short statement that anyone can understand. It’s a fact that your customers can describe who you are in no more than three words. They will continue to classify their view of you until you re-shape it for them. You probably won’t succeed at that until you write it out. Just like Nike says – do it!
Create and Promote a Guarantee
Most business owners would find this reckless and dangerous, but the genuinely unique thing is to devise a daring guarantee that steals the deal from those pretenders you call your competitors.
Aggressively Fill the Void
The action part of differentiating your business is to build the marketing & advertising communication that positions your business differently. If you aren’t skilled at this, get a professional agency or hire an experienced marketer to ensure you align your persuasive message with the client. Please consider that communication is the response you get, not just what you say; it’s always about their response.
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