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Start "Branding" You

Written by: Sandy Schussel

Article Overview: It's not simply about showing how you're different from your competitors. It's about having your prospects conclude that you’re the only solution for their problem.

Start "Branding" You

"Can you hear me now?"

Branding is a primary way to attract business. It is an expression of your identity through various strategies you use to create the perception that your services are the only solution to someone's problems. If you're in a practice or a business-even if you're just in the job market occasionally-you need to know something about branding.

It's not simply about showing how you're different from your competitors. It's about having your clients or prospects believe that what you offer is exactly the solution they need.

If I meet someone at a party or gathering, tell him during our conversation that I'm a great coach for anyone who sells a service, and ask him if he would like to work with me, I'm engaging in direct marketing.

If he comes across the room at that party and says to me, "I hear that you're a great coach for anyone who sells a service, and I'd like to work with you," I've successfully branded my business.

To brand yourself and your work, you need to take three preliminary steps:

1. Select a Target Market. Who do you most want to work with or for? As a professional, a consultant, or a service business owner, you will have more success if you become an expert in the needs of one particular narrow target market-teenagers, "Boomers," families, entrepreneurs, landscaping contractors, retirees, ADD adults, etc. It's aiming a high-powered rifle to bring down one prized wild turkey after another, rather than shooting up hundreds of pounds of buckshot in the hope of hitting something.

2. Identify one to three "core needs." What are their biggest problems or needs? Obviously, you want to talk about the needs that you have solutions for. Your typical client may need dental work, but if you have a house cleaning service, this isn't a core need you can use.

3. Design your unique solutions. Why will people or businesses in your target market buy the services they need from you and not your competitors? Clients like "packages." If the solutions you provide are not unique, start thinking about ways to package them to make them unique. If you're just another white crayon in a box of white crayons, there's no good reason to use your services. Be the red crayon in the box.

In 1994, in The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote: "If you can, be first. If you can't be first, create a new category in which you can be first." FedEx is the one to use "when it absolutely, positively has to be there over night." When are you the one to use?

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Article Tags: adults, boomers, buckshot, business owner, cleaning service, coach, dental work, direct marketing, expression, job, narrow target market, perception, prospects, service business, teenagers, typical client, unique solutions, wild turkey



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