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Creating A Unique Business

Guest post by: Shirley Mckinnon

Article Overview: How do you make your business unique? It is not difficult to create a business, but how do you make yourself different from the rest? And how do you market yourself so your business seems better than your competition? How do you advertise your business so you stand out? If you don't have a unique business, you may have to compete on price instead of selling value. Most people going into business, don't think about creating a unique business, they focus on survival. This means they may not be as profitable and will always be fighting against the competition.

Creating A Unique Business

When they build a business, most people look at promoting the business from the point of view of selling their products. To create a unique business, you must look at it from the point of view of solving your customer’s problems. This gives you a different perspective and gives you the wording and approach you need to market yourself as appearing different or better from your competition.

For example, imagine if you were sitting with a customer and you asked them what their biggest problem was. What would they say? What wording would they use? This is the exact wording you want to use in your marketing. And you need to have the solution to their problem in the heading of your marketing. Whether that marketing is on-line, in an advertisement, flier or brochure.

A very famous example was an advertisement for Mercedes Benz. “At 60mph, all you can hear is the clock ticking.” They knew their luxury target market wanted a quiet car. See how they use the solution in the heading?

If you have read your target market right and you are promoting yourself in the right area, your heading should grab their attention and interest as it promises to solve the biggest problem they have.

As you focus more and more on solving your customer’s problems, you may find that you narrow the focus of your business to follow the biggest demand where customers willingly pay for your solutions. For example, if you have a coaching business, you may go from coaching business people in general, to coaching Managers in law firms. This makes you more appealing to that sector as most customers prefer to work with someone who knows their industry well.

Or if you are a consultant, you may pick a niche market and only work within that market. While this narrows your market, you also have a better chance of becoming “The Authority” in this market than if you are targeting a crowded market. There may be many business consultants out there, but very few who only focus on business structures, profitability or increasing sales.

So, how do you discover your target market’s biggest problem? Ask. Take your ideal customer out for a drink or a coffee and ask. Take a pad and make specific notes, making sure that you get down their exact wording. Remember, that’s what you are going to use in your marketing.

And if you really want to become unique, ask them at the same time, what they don’t like about your industry. And plan to do the opposite. This way, you won’t just build a business, you’ll create a unique business which makes you a credible authority in your field.

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Article Tags: advertising, business growth, business survival, competition, marketing, Unique business



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My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Top 19 Copywriting books - 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley. 2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner. 3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill. 4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin. 7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books. 9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association. 11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books. 12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books. 13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books. 16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books. 17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall. 18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop. 19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley. This should keep you busy for at least a year. Enjoy!
Re: This is Marketing Warfare! - Hey GT, I guess this was from a while back, and it'll test your memory a bit but could you possibly elaborate on Unique Selling Proposition? Can you give us some examples of good USPs?
Re: Can you outsource your product launch? - Yes that what I am talking about. Creating a buzz for your online product launch basically. Is this part of what you do?
Exclusive: Interview with Results - Hi Forum Members, I'm helping start up a Business Coaching and Consulting company here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (a Subsidiary of RSC Business in Los Angeles). As a Research and Development Intern I am required to practice my listening and interview skills by surveying Small and Medium Businesses on thier Business. This Survey is designed by RSC Business to also assist the Business being interviewed more insight into their own business. I am looking to interview about 30 businesses across North America over the span of 3 months. At the end of these interviews I will be publishing a report of the results and they will be made available for free to the Interviewees. The Report data will include responses from a minimum of 100 interviews. I would like to extend this opportunity to members of the Forum. If you would like to have this short 20-30 minute interview conducted on your Business and you reside in North America please send me an email or PM. Please contact me at andy[at]jvprosperity[dot]com to arrange our interview and to get free access to the results when they are published.


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