Focus on Your Niche
Whatever market you work within, you know you’re not a generic, run-of-the-mill operation. You’ve got passions, expertise, and an origin story that sets you apart from your competitors. You’ve also worked with particular clients who have strengthened your skills in specific areas of your industry.
Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of what we do best. Just like people, businesses aren’t always aware of their own uniqueness and talents until somebody points them out. In-depth consultation allows you to look at what really distinguishes you—what you’re providing that’s stronger and more singular than anyone else in your comp set. A third-party outside eye can say to you: “This is something you do extremely well that nobody else is doing. How can we build on this?”
Once you’ve identified the elements of your business where you most excel, you want to communicate them in a compelling way. Seek out those clients and customers who are looking for your precise product or service. Strong referrals and internet sleuthing make it easier than ever to find that target demographic who will keep coming back for more of your services. The moment they understand your offerings and experience your customer service, your business can easily become their go-to.
Demonstrate Your Effectiveness and Professionalism
If you lead a highly service-oriented business built on meaningful interactions with the public, every transaction and interface gives you and your team an opportunity to shine. The hospitality industry understands this. So do doctors, auto mechanics, brick-and-mortar stores, tax preparers—the list goes on. The more you engage with your customers and clients directly, the better they know you, and the more you cement your bond with them.
Each moment you interface with a different individual allows you to model a clear level of competency and care. If your team members appear friendly, well-dressed, equipped to answer questions, and able to smoothly fulfill their role—people notice. Your customers pick up on the attention to detail, the streamlined proceedings, the lack of a wait time, the professional phone manner, or the personalized recommendations. If you have worked with your team to develop a company culture that prioritizes diligence and skill, you have positioned yourself to solve problems better than your competitors.
Perhaps your organization involves fewer face-to-face interactions with people. Certain digital or eCommerce services don’t require expensive human interaction. However, your customer—or your user or follower—still feels the level of professionalism built into their web experience and online communication. Their unconscious perception is always at play. In fact, it’s the deciding factor that clinches the deal.
Develop Your Brand Identity
While your automated business services systems and your business compliance make you functional, your brand identity makes you remarkable. You draw an audience by how you present yourself as a brand.
Companies must do the work to outline clear brand values that specify who they are and what they stand for. This gives you a distinct personality within the marketplace of competitors. Beyond unified colors or a recognizable logo, your branding is a message that details what your customers can expect each time they engage with you.
This kind of development requires strategy, discussion, and deliberate design choices that craft a tailored narrative both online and in-person—but it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. If your business has done the work to know itself, build an identity, and communicate that identity to the wider world, you have a much stronger foothold in your industry and in the lives of your customers or clients.
Business consultation provides a worthwhile opportunity to examine your branding and marketing decisions and discuss ways to strengthen this dimension of your company. Choices should always be conscious and deliberate. With any company, the more you establish markers of who you are, the more you’ll leave your mark on the world.
