Convey Your Business Differences

There are some incredibly original businesses in this country, creating and selling one-of-a-kind products, and marketing their businesses in unique ways.  Yet, most of these businesses will are having trouble right now getting consumers to spend money with them.  Why?

 

One major problem that occurs repeatedly with many businesses and their creative owners is being able to convey their differences effectively to potential customers who know nothing about them.

 

Let me explain:  Most businesses have a core group of customers who get to know their business very well.  These are the customers who have come to like the business for all it offers and who, over time, get to know all of its product and service offerings.  Through repeated exposure to the business, they start to learn all the most distinctive points about those products and services. 

 

For example, my sister does needlepoint projects in her spare time.  She only buys from one store.  It’s a little one, quite a distance from where she does the majority of her shopping.  It is truly a Destination to her because she totally alters her shopping patterns to go to it, travels a great distance to go to it, when she could buy similar merchandise (and some of the exact same merchandise), from a larger store closer to her.

 

To be a Destination, it must have some advantages for my sister, and it does.  My sister knows that this little store has an owner who really understands needlepoint, and she can ask her any question, and this owner or her staff will be able to answer it.  This owner will also special order items, correct problems when they occur, and because the store attracts other serious needlepoint people to the store, this place has become a network of needlepoint experts.  That doesn’t even count the full schedule of classes that the store offers to enhance the skills of their customers.  To top it all off, they do extra services like taking my sister’s finished needlepoint projects and turning them into pillows, framing them, and performing other “finishing” tasks to turn them into more complicated variations of the project.  No other store around her does all of these things.

 

The problem is that if you were new to this area and hadn’t heard about all of these extra services that this little store offers from another customer, you’d never know all of these product and service advantages existed in this little business.  In the minimal advertising they do, few of these extra services are mentioned.  And if you happened to find this store on your own in its offbeat location, and you just walked inside, you’d never know that they did all of these enhanced services by looking around. You’d have to specifically ask the owner or the staff if they did these services, in order for you to know this.  You’d never know there was a network of experts available to help you with your needlepoint project. You’d never know about their classes, the extra services, and why if you’re a serious needlepointer, that this is the best store for you.   Simply put: none of the core differences of the business are visible when you walk in, nor are they present in any of its marketing.

  

During this economy, I often hear owners complaining about their customers and how they are shopping the competition.  They complain how they are making trips to larger competitors, and making trips to big cities to shop.  They don’t understand why their customers are spending money over there, when their business is clearly better.

 

There are a lot of reasons why one-of-a-kind businesses do not project to their customers the full story of their uniqueness, but one major reason is what I call: “Minimizing”.  Owners who have created truly one-of-a-kind businesses, with differing products and services often downplay that uniqueness in their marketing and what they project to the customer.

 

Sometimes, owners think everyone knows everything their business does.  So they don’t explain it in detail and market it correctly.

 

Rule #1: Your marketplace can be larger than it is now.  More people don’t know about your business than those that do, and that’s because you’ve made it that way.

 

Rule #2:  Most customers don’t know all that you do! 

 

Sometimes owners minimize their differences intentionally because they think that talking about their businesses and elevating their product and services above their competitors is bragging.

 

Minimizing is a problem like that nasty under-your-toenail fungus disease you’ve seen on those television prescription commercials.  Small businesses sometimes don’t even know that this problem exists with them until it’s too late and their competition starts taking a bite out of their business.  They look up and their supposedly loyal customers are buying over there. In this economy, minimizing   can destroy a business.

 

Remember the quote by former Vice President John Nance Garner (Roosevelt’s VP):

 

“You have to do a little bragging on yourself even to your relatives—man doesn’t get anywhere without advertising.”

 

 

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