In the A ? Z of Marketing, U is for … Unique

What makes you different? What makes you stand out from all the other people who do exactly what you do?

I meet a lot of business owners who proudly tell me that they’re different to their competitors. “How are you different?” I ask them. The answers I hear usually include phrases like ‘providing value’, ‘building relationships’, ‘working in partnership with our clients’. And I just yawn. Why? Because I’ve heard it all before!

When you provide a service, it can be hard to distinguish your business from the others around you. Unless you compete on price and can say that you charge less than anyone else, you need to look for a better way to show potential clients why they should work with you instead of anyone else.

Here’s something for you to think about.

Who are you?

If you run your own business, or you’re the public face of the business where you work, you’ll be meeting prospects and getting to know them. Have you noticed that you don’t like everyone you meet, or that you don’t ‘click’ with every single person you speak to? This is because we like people who are like us. We gravitate towards others who share our values and beliefs.

Like it or not, when services are involved, people really do buy from people. This means that some of your customers will buy from you, simply because of you. There will be other companies that can do exactly what you do, and possibly for less money, but if someone who is in the market for your service meets and likes you, you’re in with a great chance.

How do you promote ‘you’?

By being yourself! Be authentic and true to your values. Let people get to know the real you and the ones who you like will want to work with you.

What about the people with whom you don’t click? Don’t waste time chasing after them ? after all, why would you want to work with someone you don’t like?!

How do you do what you do?

Once you’ve worked out how to promote ‘you’, think about how you do what you do. The way in which you deliver your service will be different to the ways that your competitors do it. For example, one of the things that makes Appletree different from the millions of other marketing companies out there, is that we get stuff done. We don’t leave it to our clients to do all their marketing. We often receive calls from clients asking us to do something, to which we can reply “we’ve already done that for you.” We like to be a step ahead of our clients, so they don’t have to think about their marketing and can instead focus on doing what they do.

What makes your business different and how do you tell people about it?