QUIT PLAYING THE COMPARISON GAME
Three years ago to the date of this article, I found myself in an uncomfortable situation. I couldn’t shake the voice of someone I look up to in business. At first, I consciously decided to not do too much thinking for the sake of learning when I first “met them”. But time passing with my own experiences started showing me it was now retarding my own voice. Which is important when you’re trying to be known for your own work. So I went and is currently still on a fast.
That said, if we are truly all unique? What’s wrong with thinking for ourselves?
This is the biggest pain point locally with small service businesses — no one wants to use their brain! Founders are distracted with playing the comparison game without considering the businesses they’re benchmarking their services with have been in business longer so they know who they are.
Who are you? What are your thoughts and ideas?
Where’s the personal growth if your answers are influenced by other people and what they’re doing?
UNDERSTAND HOW SMALL SERVICE BUSINESSES LEARN
When I unpaired TheBrandConductor and The One-Page Website, I realized why selling TheBrandConductor by itself when I first created it was unsuccessful. It had no reputation of its own yet for that to work. So when I’m working with a client who has a problem getting their customer to see a foundational part of their project as valuable, I’m able to truly advise them on a way through the situation in a two-to-three day intensive where I develop or redesign their processes.
So 1–3 man shows learn from their mistakes. When they share strategies with their target market, it’s advice built on their own experiences — results gained through working with their ideal clients.
This why I say real value isn’t found on Google.
IMPROVE THE BRAND EXPERIENCE FOR YOUR TARGET MARKET THIS WAY
Sure, branding is an experience, but what experience do you leverage? Your renovations? How high-end your business is? That thing you saw when you went on that trip?
Most service providers don’t know the answer and as a result, the client suffers because they end up focusing on the wrong thing.
When you work directly with your target market, the hand-holding experience isn’t fluff. The more streamlined you can be about the steps involved in getting someone from where they are to where they want to be, the better the brand experience will be for them. Improving the brand experience isn’t about adopting what other people are doing but about paying attention to where your value lies and doubling down on perfecting that.
Bells and whistles are just the cherry on the cake. It’s NOT the cake.
For example: working in DocuCentre Ltd, my branch would often cook, bake or have a drink to share or give customers or clients when they would either come to drop off work or wait for their work. A client of mine gives her clients champagne and chocolate while doing their pedicures.
The DocuCentre’s customers and clients however always preferred to work with our branch because “we were reliable”. The Pedi-Saturdays clients prefer to work with my client because “in 60 days or less” their feet were restored.
BE UNAPOLOGETIC ABOUT WHAT FULFILLMENT LOOKS LIKE FOR YOU
I had a client once say “Oh I'm open to working with clients any time”, only to backpedal under a deeper line of questioning to express, “oh yeah, my spouse will kill me if I take business
calls after 8PM.”
Family is literally a core value of 90% of my clients. So it goes without saying that small business owners didn’t venture into business to be consumed by work. The goal for them isn’t to play on an international stage, the goal is legacy (leaving something behind for their kids), presence (to be remembered by friends and family as someone who was always there for them; present for the important moments; attentive to their needs, etcetera,) and freedom (to do things like travel for vacation). In other words, their time is precious.
Spoke about this here: The #1 Basic Time-Wasting Activity For A Small Service Business
I had another client once say “My daughter is my why.”
Everyone wants to be on a world stage until you start to dig a little deeper. And when you have the full picture the emphasis starts to sound different. When was the last time you took a look at your core values?
Shake Your Cock N Bull Graphic Designs, my free Facebook group is exclusively for local founders who want to give their most secrete fears about being online a good shaking, so they can venture online with confidence!
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