Defining Your Brand

What Do You Do?  In many cases, your success will be determined by how accurately you can define what business you’re in. It has to be presented from your customer’s view – they need to know WIIFM (What’s In It For Me!)

Defining your business in this way will set you apart from everyone else in your industry – it’s your USP, or Unique Selling Proposition. In short, your USP must be able to answer the following question without hesitation or any ambiguity in the mind of your prospects -

"Why should I choose to do business with you, versus any and every other option available to me in your category – including doing nothing?"

What do your products and services do for your customers? What effects do your products and services have on their lives and work? What are the specific benefits your customers enjoy by using your products and services, and by benefit we also include what pain does your product or service remove?

What is your business’s USP? What makes you stand out in a crowded market place? Imagine I’m at a networking function and I’m chatting to someone and tell them what we do. I say we build websites, we have an HR recruitment division and we offer training and business development services. Once they’ve done their best to stifle a yawn (because, let’s face it, there’s plenty of tech companies out there today), they drift off to chat with someone else.

However, what if I said to them something different – “we work with high growth businesses – we make them look really good, we show them how to develop order out of chaos and we help them create freedom so they can enjoy what they’ve built”. What’s their first question likely to be? How do you do that? Why? Because they’d like to see themselves as a high growth business, they know they need a facelift, they live in daily chaos and the idea of freedom is a distant dream.

What you do must reflect what your customers actually want.

So, what makes your business unique? Try this – describe your business without mentioning your company, your product or your service by defining what you do, rather than what you are.

The Right People

Close your eyes and picture your best friend (not your partner, husband or wife). You know what they look like, what food they like, what they enjoy doing, where they hang out.

In business, who are your “best friends” – they’re your prospects and your customers. Can you accurately describe your perfect customer to the same degree? Why do you need to do this – because the best way to please no one is to try and please everyone!

As our top level business operators already know, you need to understand not only who your best customers are (demographically speaking) but what drives them (their psychographic profile) - which is sometimes more important. You also uncover the doubts and fears they hold in terms of your products and services? Once you understand your perfect customer you can focus on the key benefits you’re offering them while removing the fear that might cause them to hesitate.

Once you’ve clearly defined what your perfect customer looks like you can stop wasting money on “general marketing” and put your message directly in front of those people most likely to do business with you.

Teach your team how to recognise your potential perfect customers and how to reach out to them. It’s like buying a new car – when you define exactly what you want, suddenly you start seeing lots of them around town!

David Floyd

First On the Beach