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Being remarkable - how to have an extraordinary business

Written by: Julia Chanteray

Article Overview: I see a lot of businesses. Some of them are remarkable and extraordinary when I first see them, but they don’t realise it, and don’t know how to tell people about the special . Some of them are rather dull, staid businesses, but by the time I’ve finished with them, they’ve got that extra something that gets people talking about them. Setting out to make your business remarkable can have amazing benefits. If you’re struggling to attract customers, or to make enough money, you need to think again about how people see your business, or if they notice it at all. What’s a remarkable business?

Being remarkable - how to have an extraordinary business

Think about some remarkable businesses and how they’ve achieved it.

Innocent drinks have established a great brand for what is really a quite unremarkable and very expensive product. They make even a meanie like me want to buy them. Not only do they have fantastic packaging, they’ve created a whole story about the drinks which has tapped into exactly the right demand from consumers for natural and healthy products. Innocent now has 62% of market share – enormous in their sector.

Swatch threw away the watch making rule book when they started out. They found a way to make very desirable, stylish watches for a fraction of the price that Swiss watches usually cost, by using new technology and selling a lot of watches. Swatch are still around, and I’m wearing one right now. Swatch were remarkable because their products have such fantastic designs (many are now collectors items) but didn’t need to be made to last forever.

Why would I bother?

In the old days you could set up a business, place a few ads, put your name in the yellow pages and tell your friends about it. If you had a shop, you could depend on people walking past to come in and buy something. In the 21st century, things don’t work like that any more.

We have all become more sophisticated as consumers. We take less notice of ads, we’re suspicious of anything that isn’t recommended to us, and we’ll drive to the shops we like, rather than go to the one down the road.

Promoting your business is a lot harder than it used to be in the good old days. Now, the only businesses that do well, are ones that are a bit different. If you’re selling the same old stuff in the same old way, you might not even survive.

How you can be remarkable

Have a good think about your business and why people should bother to buy from you. Unless you’ve got a big business, don’t even think about trying to be cheaper than the competition – the big boys have the deep pockets to run you out of town. Amazon will always be able to sell books more cheaply than a small bookstore, but the small bookstore that makes a whole experience out of shopping there and makes their customers feel excited about buying from there will still be able to do well.

You should be thinking about what you’re selling and what’s exciting about it. What would make your customers bother to tell other people about you. Are you nicer, funnier, healthier, more ethical, more knowledgeable? Could you be?

Work out what your story is. You want people to be able to tell a story about you. That’s what Innocent did – they have lots of stories about how great it is to work there, how they did their initial market research, and even how good the drinks taste …and we believe their stories.

Next, you need to think about how you’re promoting your business. How do you get people to come to you? You want to make sure that people are talking about you, and traditional advertising usually can’t achieve that. You need to use the media to get attention, encourage people to recommend you and talk about you and your story. Newspapers, magazines and blogs are only interested in something out of the ordinary - so unless you have a remarkable tale to tell, no one is going to write about you.

Don't be boring - be remarkable, and your business results will be extraordinary as well.

Related Articles
  Be Remarkable!
  Are You Remarkable Enough?
  How to be remarkable
  Radical Shifts to Achieve Extraordinary Business Results
  On the Cutting Edge of Time - Part 1

Article Tags: 21st century, amazon, big boys, business place, consumers, deep pockets, fraction, innocent drinks, market share, meanie, old stuff, promoting your business, stylish watches, swiss watches, using new technology, yellow pages
Referred by: http://www.missionpossible.co.uk



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