subject: Creating Your Marketing Story [print this page] A challenge that many consultants, advisors and owners of small businesses face is how to differentiate themselves from their competition. Developing a marketing statement that conveys what is unique or different about your business becomes increasingly difficult.
So what truly makes your business unique? Interestingly the one thing that you want to focus on has little to do with your system or process. It has nothing to do with your education or years of experience. What makes your business unique is the story you create about yourself and your business.
Unfortunately many small businesses try to act as if they are much bigger than they are. They communicate a marketing message that may be appropriate for General Electric, but does not resonate when the author is working out of a spare bedroom. Why small businesses and solo consultants do this is easily understood. They fear that they will not be take seriously unless they pretend to be much larger than they really are.
Somewhat ironically, it is the very smallness of your company that gives it a unique advantage. It enables you to craft a story about why you founded the company, what your mission is and your business philosophy. The fact that you may be working by yourself enables you to craft a story that only you can tell. When you do so, you will be pleasantly surprised to find that clients are attracted to you because of your individuality.
So what goes into developing a good marketing story? The first step is to think about all the fears or concerns that prospective clients have about your services. For example, if you are a marketing consultant it is likely that your prospects are concerned that implementing a marketing system will be difficult or expensive. They may be getting their current clients through networking or word of mouth and do not see any reason to invest in something new.
Thus, in your story you might talk about how when you started out you relied on networking as your primary method for growing your business. However you eventually discovered that the time you could devote to networking when you did not have any clients, was no longer available to you once you successful landed some new business. You would go on to explain that since clients do not last forever you were continually in a feast or famine mode since you only had time to do marketing when business was slow.
Your story would conclude with your discovery of a marketing system that enabled you to identify new prospects and convert them into paying clients by using the internet and other automated systems. Much to your pleasant surprise the marketing system was not terribly complicated nor expensive to implement. As a result of doing this you now have consistent streams of new clients, and the feast and famine business cycles are but a distant memory. Your mission has become to share this method that worked so well for you with other small business owners.
This becomes your signature story and differentiates you from your competition because it enables prospects to relate to you. For small business owners, developing this type of marketing story becomes one of the most effective ways to stand out from the competition.
