Call: 01225 851 044 | contact us
Robert Craven Website

Same Old Doesn't Work

Doing things differently from the masses will give your business the standout it's failed to achieve. Business consultant Robert Craven explains how to be deviant.

 

 

For most smaller businesses the standard methods of marketing are not that effective.  Advertising is rarely cost-effective… more subtle ways of reaching and engaging the interest of your potential clients is now required.

Five Reasons Why ‘Normal Marketing’ Fails, (Especially For Your Business)

Let's be specific about the main reasons why marketing fails in your business.  The list is simple:

• Lack Of Commitment
• Lack Of A Clear Benefit - Don't make the things that you find easy or fun to make.  Customers do not care about how much fun you've had.  They want to know WIIFM (‘What's In It For Me’).
• Poor Positioning - You need clarity about what it is that you offer and why customers should come to you.  This, in turn, will inform you as to how to effectively promote and present yourself.
• KISS - ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’!  We have an ability to complicate things without realising that simplicity, clarity, and focus will bring us the profits we seek.
• Paralysis by analysis combined with dull thinking.

out with the old

Trading on the old tag lines no longer works.  If all your competitors are competing on the strength of the usual banners (fast, smart, value) then why should people bother to buy from you if you are just the same?  Now is the time to look at your business and try to differentiate yourself on at least one significant criterion.

Sameness Abounds

We live in a world where we compete with similar businesses that employ similar people with similar qualifications with similar wage packets to use similar software and hardware to produce similar products that are sold at similar prices through similar channels to similar customers.  Similarity and mediocrity abound wherever the customer might look.  And the good news is that if you are just 5% better or different than the competition then you will stand out a mile!

The Big One Liner

The big one liner, the big question that we need to be able to answer for ourselves and for our customers is:
‘Why should people bother to buy from us when we are the same as the competition? 

The, Almost as Big, One Liner

‘If there is a choice between being different or being better… then I’d rather be different.  Ideally, I’d rather be different and the best!’

What’s To Be Done?

Look at your business through the eyes of the customer. Why should they buy from you?  It does actually make sense to separate yourself from the masses rather than run with them. In the business world you are more likely to get noticed if you don’t run with the pack… and this increases your chances of making a sale.

 

Your Website or Brochure

I expect that most of your competitors claim to be roughly the same.  Most of them employ similar brand or web designers and between them they create very similar websites and brochures that claim roughly the following:

• We offer value for money, the best price
• We deliver contracts on time using recognised methods and approaches
• We employ well qualified staff with good credentials, experience etc
• We have a history of important clients, some of whom have written over-flowing but probably anonymous testimonials.

And finally, there is always the line that witters on about ‘what makes us different from the rest is our obsession with customer service’ or some such similarly empty line.

What absolute garbage this all is!  You will be exactly the same as the rest of your competition if you also try to achieve work by celebrating these qualities.  In most industries there is too much sameness; too much safe differentiation between the various competitors.  In reality, there is usually an over-supply of participants (as in management consultancy); and more often than not, the barriers to entry (to the industry) are relatively low. 

To state the obvious, you cannot stand out by offering the same as everyone else.  You cannot stand out by claiming that what makes you different is the same as what everyone else says is the thing that makes them different! To stand out you do need to be different.

What Makes You Different?

However, you might stand out as different in the mind of the customer if you promoted one of the following characteristics:

• A thought leader
• A category authority, a prominent public speaking profile
• A published expert, a new wave thinker
• You possess a list of testimonials from recognised characters – endorsements rather than just testimonials
• A real, money back, no questions asked, guarantee
• Payment on results only
• A Free Trial Period or Healthcheck because you know that they will buy later
• True innovation
• A position that defies conventional wisdom

Any of these characteristics could make you stand out as the expert in your field.

The Challenge

The challenge that I put to you is this: Why would you want to compete in the larger marketplace against similar competitors also trying to get a slice of the same action when you could go for a larger chunk of a smaller market where you would be better known and would have less competition?

Summary

To survive in today’s marketplace, you need to do more than simply copy the competition. That is a recipe for mediocre performance.  You won’t be remembered as you slip amongst the blur of mediocre providers all providing a ‘much of a muchness’.  You have been warned.

 

about the author

 Robert Craven is a keynote speaker and author of the best-selling business books ‘Kick-Start Your Business’ and ‘Customer Is King’. As MD of The Directors’ Centre www.directorscentre.com, the consultancy for growing businesses, he works with ambitious owner-managers to break through constraints on business growth. He can be contacted at rc@directorscentre.com +44 (0)1225 851044.

Robert Craven©2006 B2B Magazine.

publication details

First published in B2B Magazine, 2006.