This blog post has been authored by Stand Out Online Member Kelly O’Neil, Innovate Media Services
“Why is it so hard to get new business?”
There are many reasons a service-based business owner may have trouble generating business. Nine times out of ten, however, it has to do with positioning—especially in a highly competitive market.
Today’s marketplace is extremely saturated, especially when it comes to online business. Most lawyers, doctors, coaches, and other service based professionals these days find themselves floating in a sea of competition, which makes it much harder to stand out enough to catch the attention of your ideal clients.
The solution, of course, is to position yourself in the marketplace to make your competition irrelevant.
HOW TO KEEP FROM BEING INVISIBLE IN THE MARKETPLACE
One of core strategies I bring my clients through is to make sure they are positioned to be wildly different from all their competitors, and to attract clients who are affluent enough to allow them to be profitable in their business.
There are many ways to approach positioning. Here are three of the best places to start if you want to really differentiate yourself from the competition.
1. Specialize
The more specialized you are, the more you will stand out from the crowd. And, the more specialized you are, the higher rates you can charge.
Compare a general practitioner and a neurosurgeon. Who can charge more? The specialist, of course. But it goes deeper than that. A doctor who specializes in a particular kind of neurosurgery may not see as many patients, but I can tell you right now they’re going to charge a lot more because they’re so highly specialized.
You can specialize in any industry by becoming an expert in a very specific niche. For example, one of the ways I was able to separate myself from the sea of business coaches and consultants out there was by niching myself as the Marketing to Millionaires expert. I’m known in the industry as the authority in that area: if people are talking marketing to the affluent, my name comes up.
It’s a great niche, but I want to stress that I didn’t choose it only for its marketing potential. It happened to be an area where I had legitimate personal and business expertise.
So one of the first things you should do to set yourself apart in a saturated market is to ask yourself: what can you specialize in—based on your expertise and what you do best— to separate yourself from the pack?
2. Brand Yourself Differently
Another important way to differentiate yourself is in your branding and how you look online.
I was recently in the market to hire a social media provider. After a while I started to feel like I was having déjà vu, because every person who pitched me looked like they were using the exact same site. There was not a whole lot to distinguish them but price.
You don’t want to put yourself in this position. If you have the same look and feel as all your competitors, then the consumer starts to think: “what’s the difference?” You become a commodity. Good bye, customer loyalty, hello price-conscious, ungracious clients. No, thanks.
So, you don’t want to look like everyone else out there. But what DO you want to look like?
Here’s my advice: First, take a look at all of the competitors out there in your market niche – and then do something totally different.
If you’re looking at other peoples’ sites, look for inspiration but don’t copy. I actually recommend to look outside your industry for inspiration when you brand yourself. And if you want to appeal to an affluent market, look in industries that cater to the affluent. For instance, when I rebranded my own business, I looked at luxury hotel sites, luxury cars, high end consulting firms outside my niche, and similar sites.
3. Create a Signature Solution
One of the most powerful things you can do to make your competition irrelevant is to create a proprietary solution of some sort. When you productize your service with your own methodology or process, it puts you in a category all by yourself—which puts the spotlight right where you want it: on you.
In my own consulting business, I’ve created the Profit-Ology™ system. It’s proprietary to me, it’s trademarked, and no one can touch it. I do this for my consulting clients, too. For example, I helped my therapist client Susanne Mealer brand a specific methodology she uses to get results for her clients as The Hurtig Approach™. No other therapist can offer it. She’s in a class of her own.
When you’re telling someone about your own proprietary system it immediately differentiates you. But it can’t be blasé. “7 Steps to Getting More Clients” won’t catch anyone’s attention. It needs to be a highly branded solution that helps you stand out from everyone else in the marketplace.
Once you find your specific approach, methodology, or proprietary system that’s different from what anyone else in world is doing, you become far more attractive because you now have a unique solution. If people want that solution guess whom they have to seek out? You, of course—and no other.
FOCUSED AND FEARLESS
Now more than ever with all the saturation in the market out there it’s vitally important to figure out your signature positioning that differentiates you from everyone else in the market.
A lot of entrepreneurs become afraid when I talk with them about positioning, because it requires them to let go of a lot of perceived business. They think: “What I have to offer doesn’t just apply to that one narrow audience. I could be serving so many more people.”
But the reality is, trying to go after a broad audience is the surest way ever make your business invisible in a saturated market. It’s literally like dressing your business up in camo. That’s a huge mistake, especially if you are trying to market online.
Instead, when everyone else goes left, go right. Rather than trying to attract clients you CAN serve, go for the ones you can serve BEST. And, come up with a proprietary solution that only you provide. You’ll be amazed what a difference it will make to your business.
Kelly O’Neil is a multi-award winning entrepreneur, affluent marketing and brand-marketing expert for the next generation of innovative companies and thought leaders.
As a highly successful marketing consultant for service-based businesses, Kelly knows exactly what it takes to exit a recession stronger than when you entered it. Her ability to tap into and understand the affluent mindset has made Kelly America’s leading expert in selling to the millionaire market.**
She has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, NBC, and Huffington Post among others! Kelly is a best-selling author, has shared the stage with industry legends including Tim Ferris, Jack Canfield and Brian Tracey, and was named by Seth Godin as “One of the Most Innovative Companies in America.”