In this series of posts I am focusing on 9 challenges that every business faces.
I will post one of these challenges every week. These are challenges that I’ve seen as I’ve begun consulting various businesses over this last year.
The more I’ve thought about it the more I’ve come to believe that these are the same challenges that any/every business faces – no matter what product or service they sell.
I also believe that successful businesses in any arena are successful BECAUSE they have overcome each of these 9 challenges.
Each post in this series will give a brief description of one of the 9 challenges that you face as a business owner.
Let’s look at the fourth challenge every successful business overcomes.
4. Your prospects need to know why they should choose your business over other businesses that offer the same product or service.
In the last challenge, we talked about why you need to make it very CLEAR why it matters to your prospects that your business exists. You need to make the benefits and end results that you offer them extremely obvious.
But what about all the other businesses that are in the same category as yours? Your prospects have to know WHY/HOW your business is different/better than any of the other choices.
I have two situations for you to imagine to help you see the need for this…
SITUATION #1
Imagine that you’re thirsty and want to buy a bottle of water. Now imagine a whole crowd of people who all look and sound the similar. They even are dressed similar. They are all yelling your name, holding up water bottles, and telling you they have what you want!
Which one are you going to choose? It’s hard to decide isn’t it? It’s actually pretty confusing. You’ll probably pick the closest and/or the loudest one.
SITUATION #2
Now imagine the same situation and the same crowd yelling out the same things. But suddenly you look closer at the crowd and you see one guy who is dressed differently.
He’s yelling your name too, but he’s saying something different. He’s telling you that his water is chilled at exactly 40ºF to make it extremely refreshing. He tells you that the others are just at room temperature.
He also tells you that his water comes from a pure spring at the top of a mountain and is filtered to get out any impurities, but still maintains the important minerals your body needs. He also mentions that all of the others are just bottled and filtered tap water.
He tells you that his water is priced at the same as the others, but that the it will be much more refreshing and helpful for your body.
Which one are you going to choose now? The one guy who’s different!
Why? Because you know why/how what he is offering is different and better than the others!
This is what it’s like when we don’t make it clear to our prospects why/how we’re different from the competition.
I was driving through my city and saw a van with a generic sign on their door that just said, “Air conditioning and heating service” and it had a phone number on the sign that you could call.
I couldn’t believe that was all it said!
Did they think someone who needed that service was going to see the van a scream, “YES! I finally found an A/C and heating service!” and then call them right away?
It a small town, with no competition for miles around, that might work, but not in most areas nowadays!
Why didn’t this guy have at least a name on his A/C & heating sign? Something at least like “Steve Smith’s A/C & Heating service”.
Better yet, why didn’t this guy ALSO have something on the sign that explained how his service was unique. “We offer the guaranteed best priced services that are fully guaranteed for 1 year!”
That would’ve been much more powerful and attractive to prospects looking for his services. My prediction is that he won’t be in business for very much longer.
Successful businesses make it very clear that their businesses are different than the competition. They clearly spell out how their product or service is better/different.
If you want your business to have a chance of succeeding whether the recession is over or not, then prospects must know how you’re different than other businesses selling the same things.
Next week I’ll post the 5th Challenge that every successful business overcomes.
In the meantime, if you have thoughts about this fourth challenge you want to share, then post them in the comments.
- What do you think?
- Do you agree?
- What has your experience been with this first challenge?
Post your comments, thoughts and even questions – if you have any!
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I’m a business strategist, consultant, content creation specialist, and speaker. I’ve been studying effective marketing and business methods (both online and offline) since 1999.
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