Struggling to cut through with your marketing? Finding it difficult to get and keep attention? Finding your prospects are ever more fickle?
You’re not alone!
In the internet age your competitor is just one click away. And competition has never been more rife or pervasive.
So if you’re to have any chance of success you must be able to comprehensively differentiate yourself.
Often called a USP (Universal Sales Proposition) or UBA (Unique Buying Advantage), your success hinges on your ability to articulate value, differentiate yourself and engender trust.
In short, you have to stand out from the crowd.
But in an age when your prospects want to do their own research, be educated, and not be sold to how do you do this?
Educate, educate, educate!
By that I mean bring valuable information to the table. New ways of doing things. Insights that they’ll find useful either personally or professionally.
Don’t make the mistake of just talking about yourself and how great you are. Remember, people are only interested in themselves and what you can do for them.
Stop Apples to Apples comparisons.
In an age where everyone becomes vanilla you have to find a way to stop easy comparisons with your competitors.
Don’t use generic, highly overused and frankly meaningless terms like:
Quality, Trust, Integrity, We care, Full Service, Excellence, Experience, Customer Satisfaction, Dedication etc.
Rather than talk about “quality”, explain how you ensure “quality”. What ingredients you use. What process you follow. What checks and balances exist to ensure your customers get what they paid for.
“Customer Satisfaction”? Tell me a story about a customer who wasn’t happy (even though it may have been his own fault) and you rectified it with a smile.
Set the buying criteria.
I learned a harsh lesson in my corporate sales career in the 80’s and 90’s.
Simply put, if you weren’t in at the ground floor influencing how your prospect selected a solution, you had very little chance of being successful.
In 2015 nothing’s changed in that regard.
The salient difference though is your prospects are often already searching for solutions and will do extensive online research before picking up the phone and contacting you.
But why would they contact you over the possibly hundreds of competitors out there?
It comes down to your positioning.
If you’re positioned as the authority in your field and a trusted advisor, you’ll go to the front of the line.
There are a number of ways you can do this, with varying degrees of difficulty and effort.
Speaking
Speaking is one of the most effective ways to communicate value and be perceived as a specialist and trusted advisor. Speaking to a group provides leverage as you’re addressing a number of people at a time.
You can speak to industry groups, at Chamber of Commerce functions and run public seminars. It’s one of the most effective persuasion skills you can master. If you’re not a confident and engaging speaker give us a call.
We offer customised sales presentation workshops to individuals and groups that will enable you to get your message across with clarity and confidence. The result? You will close more business.
Webinars
Webinars (or online one to many meetings) where people can attend from the comfort of their own home or office can be very effective. However, nothing quite beats a live audience who’ve had to make an effort to attend.
Publish Valuable Content
Writing articles which you publish on your own site, syndicate to industry publications and social media outlets like LinkedIn or Facebook will increase your authority and trust factor.
However it takes considerable discipline to regularly publish, so don’t start this and expect miracles if you’re not in it for the long haul.
Above all, have a marketing plan.
It’s all very well to do all the above, but if you don’t have a plan to get it into the hands of your target audience, what’s the point?
Everything you do should be done with the intention of increasing your trust and authority factor, gently encouraging your prospects to buy and stay for the long haul.
And no, there’s no quick fix or instant riches here. Anyone telling you that is peddling snake oil.
Want to increase your market share? Open up new markets?
We currently have room for a couple of new clients who want to both rapidly and sustainably grow their business. But we’re not for everyone.
If you feel we could help, give us a call and we’ll arrange a complimentary discovery session to see if you qualify and we can add value.
