Standing Out From The Crowd
While in New York recently I was struck by how competitive it was just to get noticed. In a thriving city of millions of people if you do not stand out from the crowd then you merge into the background. Small business owners need to put in place the right strategies to get themselves to STAND OUT!
Time Square is an amazing central hub in New York. The first thing you notice is all of the billboard advertising for Broadway plays. Each of them desperately trying to get your ATTENTION. The second thing you notice is all of the hustle that is going on. Hundreds of sprukers trying to sell you tickets to an endless supply of entertainment.
If you do not have an angle, something that makes you unique … something to make you STAND OUT from the crowd then guess what … you go largely unnoticed.
One person doing this extremely well is The Naked Cowboy. Take a look at the picture above … here is a street performer who has figured out one approach to standing out and stand out he did. The evidence was the constant crowds of people around him (mostly women). I would not want to be a street performer competing with this guy if I didn’t have some sort of angle for standing out.
So how does this relate to you and your small business?
Do you need to go to the lengths of the Naked Cowboy to stand out?
Right now we live in an age where it is easier than ever for people to start a small business in a whole range of categories. Chances are good that if you went back ten to twenty years you probably would not have even dreamed of starting a business … but today the barriers to entry are lower than ever.
This means one thing … whatever business you are in there is going to be more competition than ever before. You are not the only one doing what you do and competing for the dollars of your prospective client. Not only do you have competition right now but there is more coming … much more.
So you have to start thinking about how you are going to STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD!
Here are three strategies you can start to use immediately to make sure you stand out from everyone else in the same business that you are in:
1/ Unique Approach or System – One of the most effective strategies you can implement is to develop your Unique Approach or System for how you work with clients. Most small business owners market what they do as opposed to the system they use to help clients get results. What they do is the same as what everyone else competing with them does … so they merge into the background of the many.
Remember your clients are only interested in getting results which is a solution to their problem. If they see that you have a unique approach or a step-by-step system for getting the result they want, and that no one else has this, then they will naturally be attracted to you.
So if you are a personal trainer for instance you are perceived by your prospective clients to do pretty much what all personal trainers do. What if you created though the ‘Three Phase Fat Blast’ system? Now you would stand out because no one else would have this unique approach or system.
This is what I did with my business and it played a major role in my success. You see I could have marketed myself like all business coaches did and done okay. Instead I developed ‘The Attraction Marketing System’ … a unique approach to helping small business owners attract more clients. As a result my profile and ability to market myself and stand out from the crowd skyrocketed. All of a sudden my prospective clients could clearly see why they should do business with me as opposed to any and all other options.
So look at what you do and develop your unique approach or system.
2/ Don’t Think Like They Do – If you want to stand out from the crowd then you can not be like the crowd. So you need to seperate yourself from them. What I mean by this is that most small business owners tend to associate with all of their peers. So the life coach tends to form networks of other life coaches. They share ideas, talk about their business, and share philosophies on the life coaching business.
Now here is what happens … over time you start to model the people you associate with. So you see them applying a paritcular marketing strategy and next thing everyone is using the same strategy.
If you want to stand out from the crowd then you can not be one of the crowd.
You want to seek advice, and ideas on marketing from those outside your industry or business.
If you want to stand out from the crowd then you can not think like, act like or be like the crowd!
3/ Out Market Them – The last strategy that you can use to stand out from the crowd is to simply out market them. If you put in place the right marketing systems that gives you massive amounts of visibility amongst your tightly defined niche market then you will stand out.
Here is why … its highly likely that your competitors are not placing a high enough priority on their MARKETING.
If you focus on putting in place a highly effective marketing system into your business that drives thousands of new leads into your marketing funnel then before long you will own the market. This will make you stand out from the crowd because your prospective clients are attracted to success. They will be magnetised to you when they see enough social evidence that you are the person to go to.
Your marketing system needs to do three things … Attract leads, Convert Leads into Clients, and Increase the Value of Each Client.
I can almost guarantee you that 95% of your competitors do not have such a markeitng system in place in their business right now. When you implement such a system you will put yourself in a position where you will easily stand out.
The good news is you don’t need to get naked and stand in Time Square to get noticed and stand out. In fact you only need to do a few things well (all of them marketing focused) in order to gain the ATTENTION of your target market.
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principle here for all small business owners.
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