The easiest way to outshine your competitors, win new clients and build lasting success, is, in my opinion, to stick to the StandOut Strategy that is best for your business. I’ve identified five of them, so all you need to do is find out which one is best for your business and follow it. Simples!

But what happens when you go off track? When you don’t use the emotional language that your potential clients want to hear, in your marketing? When you don’t ‘live’ your StandOut Strategy?

In my last two blogs I’ve written about what can go wrong with the first two strategies – Certainty and Connection. This time, let’s look at how not to live Contribution.

Stop Swimming Against Your StandOut Strategy

Contribution as a StandOut Strategy is all about helping clients and prospects to feel a sense of duty, of giving back and of humanity. I see it used brilliantly with many charities. I also see charities and other organisations missing a trick, when they don’t use it, to get the support they need.

My local school has a swimming pool. It’s sometimes open to the public. It’s in need of renovation, to keep it running and useable for the children who attend the school and local people who want to swim there. The school needed to raise money to help with the funds. They were short of their target and the deadline for raising the money was getting close.

Local parents told me that countless emails had already been sent, asking for donations. The school was still short of their target.

Suddenly, there was a rush of activity on local social media. There were many suggestions offered by kind people in the village. “Why don’t we ask everyone to donate £5?” “Shall we put a collection bucket outside the school?” “Maybe we could all sell something and give the money to the fundraising?”

Plenty of very well-meaning ideas, but where was the emotional connection? There’s a certain amount of it on the school’s fundraising page, but no real tugging at heartstrings. Nothing about paying it forward, creating a partnership between the school and local people, no collaboration or empathy. Not everyone in the village has children. Not everyone sends their kids to that school. Not everyone wants to go swimming. And yet so much more could have been done, to raise the funds really easily, if they had applied the Contribution StandOut Strategy to the project.

When it’s done well, it’s about showing supporters what impact they will have, by donating. It’s about feeling a sense of service, when you make a donation. Just saying “Give us some money or the pool will close,” has very little emotional impact on most people.

If you think that Contribution might be the best strategy for your business, you can find out when you Take the Test for free on the website, where you’ll get a free report. Contribution isn’t just for charities and not-for-profit organisations.

I’m pleased to report that the school did manage to hit their target in time to get their match funding. They could have done it much more quickly, if only they had put more emotion into their requests for help.

How NOT to do Contribution

If Contribution is the strategy that will make your business stand out – by helping your potential clients to feel a sense of purpose and philanthropy – here’s what NOT to say in your marketing and what not to do, to win those new clients:

• Take, take, take – it’s not all about your business. Don’t spend time at networking events trying to sell your services to everyone in the room. Instead, listen to what others want to say. Then you can ask what help these people need, so they can think about how you can really help them. That might mean offering them free advice, or putting them in touch with one of your competitors, who can better serve them.
• Green wash – don’t send free email Christmas cards, telling your clients and prospects that your business is saving paper and that it will donate the money saved to charity. Buy cards made from recycled paper, from a local charity. Alternatively, order bespoke cards, for which a donation will be made to your business’s chosen charity. If you must donate rather than posting cards, make a proper donation and prove it – show how much money the business has donated, where the money is going and the impact it will have.
• Keep it all for yourself – paying it forward is a huge part of Contribution. This doesn’t mean that your business must donate all its profits to charity, or that you should spend all your time on pro bono work. Both are very effective marketing tactics, when used wisely and communicated sympathetically. Don’t brag. Prove what you’re doing that goes beyond your business.

When you’re promoting your business with Contribution, your potential clients need to see how much of a contribution your business makes. Don’t just tell them about it in your marketing. They need to see it in your actions too, to be reassured that your business can help them to do the same.

Next time – how NOT to do Growth.