What Makes Your Business Different?

Introducing your business to a prospect can make many small business owners break out in a cold sweat. When they ask the dreaded question, “So what makes you different from the others?”, you hesitate, stutter, or worse, look like the proverbial doe in the headlights. And on top of that, the totally sweaty, pasty look just doesn’t do anything for great first impressions.

Being able to answer that question comfortably with your true differentiating factors clearly stated can boost your confidence and build confidence about your expertise in the person you are speaking with. Differentiation makes your business memorable and credible. You want a prospect to be able to quickly understand what you do and what sets you apart from your competitors.

The secret to creating your differentiation is understanding what your Ideal Client really wants and making sure you deliver it better than anyone else. Don’t be fooled - this exercise is not easy to do. It takes a lot of thought, brainstorming and sometimes some trial and error to see what works.

Take some time to really think about the following and come up with a list of things you do really well. Don’t underestimate anything because something that you do that is so simple may be just the key to your differentiator:

• What do your clients really appreciate about your service?
• Why are long term clients still with you?
• What was one of the nicest things a client ever said about how you conduct business?

The challenge for service businesses is to clearly identify what you do best in a way that is visible to your target. Consultants, accountants, financial planners, coaches, designers, web developers and the like appear to all be the same: they offer the same services for about the same price. Stand out by really understanding what you do best and exploit it. Or come up with something unique that adds value over your competition that you can offer.

• Create offers that are too hard to ignore - Can you package your services to add so much value that people just have to have it?
• Be known as the expert in your discipline - Author articles, books and other information products;
• Offer benefits that are free for you but add value or convenience for your prospects  - Provide access to you via Instant Messaging or Email 24×7.

A note of caution: Try not to differentiate on price. Who really wants to be the cheapest? People flock to buy higher priced products, stay at five star hotels or buy brand names. Why? Because top of the line projects value. You get what you pay for is a statement based in reality. Cheaper can evoke perceptions of lower quality, less breadth of knowledge, or a less stable business environment. Figure out a better way to differentiate.