Over the last four months I’ve dedicated a monthly blog post to each of my five StandOut Strategies. If you’ve missed any of the previous strategies, you can read Certainty, Connection, Contribution and Growth here. This month I’m writing about the fifth and final strategy – Significance. If you think this could be the strategy that will make your business stand out, read on to find out how NOT to live Significance and some of the pitfalls to avoid.

Your Clients Just Want to Be Heard. Are You Listening?

Sometimes we want someone to just turn up and do the job (which is all about Certainty); at other times, we want to be treated like royalty. We want some suppliers to recognise us and treat us like the most important customer in the world. If Significance is the strategy that you use to make your business stand out, are you treating your clients like super stars?

I love to travel for business and for holidays and I go away quite a lot. When I’m away, I find someone to house sit for me, mostly to take care of all my animals (and keep an eye on my home too.) There are a number of online services that I can use to be matched with ideal house-sitters. In the last few years, I’ve been very lucky to find great people who do a wonderful job of looking after my menagerie.

Sadly, I’ve had a couple of poor experiences. One house-sitter managed to let my hens out of their pen, resulting in one of them being taken by a fox. That particular house-sitter also drank all my beer and left my home a day before he should have done. He then wrote a not very nice review about me, on the matching website. When I complained to the company (for whose service I pay an annual fee) my concerns were ignored. I was told that nothing could be done to change the review, even though it was factually incorrect. They weren’t interested in the sad fact that I’d lost one of my hens.

I have continued to use that house-sitting site, because, for the most part, they find me great house-sitters. (It takes a certain type of person to want to stay in a remote cottage in the country, looking after four cats, one dog, six hens and two horses!) However, I no longer recommend them to anyone. Recently they sent me one of those generic email surveys. “Would you recommend us?” was the question they asked. I scored them just 2 out of 10. When they asked why I gave that score, I typed a message about how they never listen to my concerns. I even put my phone number into the message, suggesting they call to find out more. I am not expecting to hear from them. They probably won’t even read the message. While they will continue getting my business – because the majority of their house-sitters are great – they won’t get any recommendations from me.

Do your clients want to be seen and heard? Do they want to be treated with respect? If so, are you telling them, in your marketing, that’s how they’ll feel when they work with you? Are you making sure that your customer service is top class?

Not sure if Significance is the strategy that makes your business stand out? Take the Test here for a free report.

How NOT to do Significance

If Significance is the strategy that will make your business stand out – by allowing your clients to feel seen, heard and respected – here’s what NOT to say in your marketing and what not to do, to get new clients:

• Disrespect – don’t ever use marketing to disrespect competitors. If you don’t like what they’ve done, just ignore them. Respect is so important to your business’s clients, that real harm can be done to a reputation by showing disrespect for others.
• Imperfection – nobody is perfect, but you should proofread every single piece of marketing content, before it is shared. Don’t let typos or mistakes detract from the impact you want your business to make.
• Triviality – too many social media posts don’t really help anyone. Don’t waste time on marketing that doesn’t offer real value, or that doesn’t help potential clients to solve one of their challenges.
• Insignificance – don’t ever let clients feel that they are not important to your business. Even when working with a number of different clients, let each one feel as if they are the most important.
• Unimportance – everything that clients say and do must be treated with importance. Always listen to what they have to say and show them how essential they are to your business.
• Disregard – never show disregard for clients. They may come up with crazy ideas, and it’s your job to listen to what they have to say. Allow them to be heard and then work with them to focus on the best ideas.

When you’re promoting your business on Significance, your clients are looking for gravitas and to be understood. Use your marketing to show that your business takes the time to fully understand clients and what’s important to them. Use dignity in your marketing messages, building on the gravitas of your business. This will make it much easier to attract clients for whom Significance is so important.

That’s it for this year on the StandOut Strategies. Next month … perhaps a bit of marketing festive fun?!