Most businesses have a lot of competitors offering similar products and services. Photo / 123RF
The reality of business today is that most of us have a lot of competitors who offer similar products and services to what we offer.
(And many of these competitors are very good at what they do as well.)
If you are an accountant there are a lot of other accountants offering similar services.
If you are a builder there are a lot of other builders who potential clients could use.
If you are a business consultant there are a huge number of business consultants offering consulting services.
And so on.
So how do you position your business as being better than all your competitors?
Here is a simple strategy you might like to try ...
Chris Bell is the owner of a fascinating business called 'Customer Experiences'.
He is an expert on helping New Zealand Businesses to create an amazing customer experience for their customers.
I was chatting with Chris recently and he commented that competitors today can copy a lot of what you do in business.
However one thing that is extremely hard to copy is having a team of people who have a total focus on delivering an amazing customer experience that creates raving fans for your business.
When you do this well you create an environment that causes delighted customer to tell everyone they know how good your business is. (You also have a business that is filled with people who are highly productive and really love working there.)
So how is Chris better than other organisations that offer to help businesses create an amazing customer experience?
It's very simple ...
Chris has a "Special Way" of working with his clients.
He involves every single person working in the business, plus he also works with all the suppliers to the business.
Most of his competitors will only work with front-line staff in an organisation who directly communicate with customers.
So why does Chris work with every person in a business, as well as their suppliers?
It's very simple.
Chris has found that every person in a business (no matter what their role is) has some impact on the experience a customer has when interacting with a business.
A person in accounts for instance may not speak with a customer personally.
However if an invoice is incorrect or late that can easily have a big impact on what a customer thinks and feels about a business.
Chris has also discovered that it's often the lowest paid people in a business who can come up with the highest-value ideas.
He worked with a plumbing supply firm a while ago and he had morning tea with all the people who worked in the warehouse for that business.
Chris encouraged them to come up with ideas on how to improve any part of what they were doing.
A new staff member mentioned that they were not doing as well as they could with regards to getting deliveries out promptly to customers.
He suggested a couple of ways they could do this better.
The end result was that management embraced these ideas and came up with some simple processes that made a huge difference to how fast a customer received their orders.
And this produced delighted customers and a large jump in revenues.
Your Special Way of doing business could be a lot of different things.
It could be how fast you respond to an enquiry from a potential client.
Derek Sivers founded a wonderful online business called CD Baby.
His "Special Way" of doing business was that all phone calls from customers were answered by a real live person in two rings or less.
Customers loved being able to ring up and talk to a real person and this was one of the keys that helped CD Baby do remarkably well. (Derek ended up selling CD Baby a few years later for $22 million.)
Your "Special Way" of doing business could be the memorable added value you provide to your customers that they then talk about with all their friends.
Queensland Dentist Paddi Lund does this brilliantly.
He took out the reception desk in his dental practice and installed an amazing state-of-the-art cappuccino machine instead.
He bakes fresh dental buns for all his clients, and serves 30+ varieties of tea in fine bone china.
Every patient is welcomed to a treatment room with their own name on it.
His patients love this memorable added value and 100 per cent of Paddi's business now comes as referrals from his existing patients.
There are actually dozens of simple ways to show how your business is better than all your competitors.
Having a "Special Way" of doing business is one of these ways and could well be worth testing in your own business.
"Employees are a company's greatest asset - they're your competitive advantage. You want to attract and retain the best; provide them with encouragement, stimulus, and make them feel that they are an integral part of the company's mission." - Anne M. Mulcahy
What "Special Way" of doing business could you create that your customers would love and would position your business as being better than all your competitors?
- Graham McGregor is a Marketing Adviser and helps businesses who offer an expensive service to quickly attract ideal new clients. You can download his brand-new 106 page marketing guide The Expensive Service Marketing Solution at no charge from www.TheExpensiveServiceMarketingSolution.com
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