What is special about 'how' you do business? Photo / iStock
I recently wrote Part 1 of a marketing column on making your business unique and special.
In this column I'd like to share Part 2 of how to make your business unique and special.
How do you persuade customers to choose your business instead of your many competitors to spend their money with?
Look at 'how you do business' and show potential customers why this makes your business the obvious choice to spend their money with.
Let me explain with three examples...
Kirsten Hawke is a director of Business Buddy Accounting.
Business Buddy Accounting love innovative and useful technology. In fact Business Buddy Accounting won the Panalitix Award earlier this year for being the most innovative accounting firm in 2016.
They show their clients how to use technology to make their businesses both profitable and enjoyable to run.
Business Buddy Accounting also have being Socially Responsible as a core value in how they do business.
So they are part of a group called B1G1. (Buy One Give One.)
B1G1 helps businesses achieve a greater social impact by embedding giving in their everyday transactions.
Being part of B1G1 means that every time Business Buddy Accounting files a tax return they also give five doses of vitamins to children in need.
And whenever a new client signs up at Business Buddy Accounting they provide one day of bookkeeping skills training to a woman in need in Africa.
By promoting the use of technology and being socially responsible Business Buddy positions their accounting practice as being unique and special.
And it's worked so well for their own business they are now offering franchises to other accounting firms around the country who would like to duplicate the great results they are enjoying.
Sometimes in business you have a lot of competitors who all seem to be offering a similar service.
One way to position yourself as being different from your competitors is to use what we call Added Value Marketing.
Here's a good example.
Maurice van Liempd is a real estate professional with Eves Real Estate in Rotorua.
Here's how Maurice uses Added Value Marketing.
First of all, if you are thinking of selling your home Maurice offers an excellent 16 page guide that you can have at no charge.
This guide explains in great detail the 7 biggest mistakes that people make when selling their home and how to make sure you don't make these mistakes.
By offering this guide Maurice gives potential clients who are thinking of selling their home a lot of helpful and valuable ideas that add real value to them.
Maurice also sends a positive two page newsletter in hard copy format with key prospects and key referral sources each month as well.
This gets him positively remembered in a way that adds value every month. (By doing this he is building an audience of people who are receiving great value from Maurice every month.)
When you build an audience like this and make added value contact regularly it is a lot easier to get regular repeat and referral business from these people.
One key with Added Value Marketing is to use it consistently.
Ideally at least once a month.
A common marketing problem many of us face is how to handle large competitors with deep pockets.
One useful strategy here is to 'dominate a niche' in your industry.
Here's an interesting example.
Brian Clough is the owner of a security consulting firm called 'Auckland Security Cameras'
Brian explained that one of the keys to his company's success is that first of all they picked a niche to dominate. They focussed solely on Video Security Cameras.
Once they focussed on this niche they decided they would only offer the best quality video security cameras in the world and they quickly became experts in this field.
They learned how to fix dozens of common problems that businesses had with video security cameras.
(A lot of the problems his firm were called in to fix came from businesses buying video security cameras that either didn't do the job properly or they had been incorrectly installed by the firms who supplied them.)
They also make it very easy for their clients to learn how to use the Video Security Camera systems that they installed. They give their clients great training and follow it up with comprehensive video tutorials and online resources.
Auckland Security Cameras are also experts at showing their clients how to use video security cameras to improve sales and profits quickly. One of the cameras they install for a number of their clients is called Profit Cam and it does exactly what the name suggests.
It helps their clients to quickly improve their profits.
You can see details on Profit Cam here.
Business is going very well for Brian and his team.
And it started by choosing a niche to dominate.
Summary:
Whatever your business there are always simple things you can do to make it appear unique and special in the minds of potential clients.
"We look for opportunities where we can offer something better, fresher and more valuable and we seize them. We often move areas where the customer received a poor deal and where the competition is complacent. And with our growing e-commerce activities, we also look to deliver old products in new ways. We are proactive and quick to act, often leaving bigger and more cumbersome organizations in our wake" - Richard Branson
Look at 'how' you do business. (Before, during and after a client spends money with you.)
What is special about 'how' you do business?
And how can you share this with potential clients to give them good reasons to choose your business to spend their money with?
The data show Rotorua has the highest proportion of burglaries in New Zealand.