Growth Question #2: How do I stand out?

How do we stand out from the rest of the businesses in our industry? What is our unique selling proposition? How do we create differentiation in our business?

If I had a pound for every time a client has asked us this, I would have an office made solely of pound coins (and a cushion, those coins are HARD).

For small businesses, the challenge of identifying or creating this stand out can be problematic. ‘There’s nothing that I do as a business that is totally unique,’ they lament. Indeed, if a small business makes cakes, they will inevitably share commonalities with other businesses in that arena – they all make cakes, they all use similar ingredients, they all say they do it with love and care and have a passion for what they do. So far, so similar. So how do you move your business away from everyone else? And for a start, why is it so damn important?

Let’s address that straight off. Why is stand out so important? You watch ten presentations in a row. Nine of them use PowerPoint. One of them juggles on a unicycle. Which one do you remember best? You listen to ten business owners in a networking meeting. Nine of them talk about their products or services and their ‘extra mile’ customer service approach. One of them talks about their mission to make the world a kinder place. Which one catches your ear and sticks in your brain?

I attended a networking meeting some years ago, where an accountant stood up, said: “I’m an accountant, you all know what an accountant does,” and sat down again. Gulp. Just because you do the same as other businesses, that in no way means you don’t do it differently, whether that is in your approach, your beliefs, your attitude or a host of other ways. And once you have identified this difference, you naturally create distance between yourself and other businesses, so that when you stand up and talk about your business, you do have a story to tell. Your ‘stand out’ element becomes an intrinsic part of your brand story, and it is a story worth telling and remembering.

So if you are interested in defining, discovering or creating a difference, we have developed a tool you can use. It is a great way of kick-starting your thinking and looking at your business in the wider context of your industry. Some businesses are born with difference: others have to uncover it, some create it – and there is equal validity in all approaches.

In essence, the tool takes six key elements of your business and asks you to identify what you consider to be the ‘business as usual’ approach to this element within your industry. Thinking about our cake makers, it may be that the business as usual brand values include ‘made with love’ and ‘hand crafted with passion’. For accountants, the business as usual financial model could be annual or monthly contracted payments.

Think about the business as usual approaches in your industry. Then think about your business. What do you do that is different to this? If you can’t identify anything, your next challenge is to be creative about what could be different to this? What would be business as UNusual? The maths tutoring industry could have a business as usual approach of live 1-2-1 or small group online hour-long sessions. So what about offering bite-size, 15 minute chunks of learning? Or a blend of pre-recorded and live? Or delivering the learning to 5000 students in an arena? (Please note: this bit is where you get to be creative. No idea is too stupid at this stage, and as I have said before, new-born ideas are like tiny baby birds. They need nurture and gentle handling, and definitely are not to be tossed out of the nest just because they look a bit weird).

There are no right or wrong answers here – it is about spending some time being creative about possible solutions.

Once you have a whole raft of stand out ideas, you can then work on identifying the one or two that will align with what you want to achieve in your business, that will work well as part of your brand story, and of course, will engage your audience.

All you need to have to start this thinking is a white board, or some big bits of paper and Sharpies – you can start right now (big paper and big pens helps big thinking). However, if you want to work through a structured exercise, you can find our tool here: Growth Questions: How do we stand out? It is part of our Tool Shed, which is a free-to-join members area. Once signed up (which only requires your email, not your inside leg measurement or your last 3 home addresses) you have access to all the tools in our Tool Shed to help you with various aspects of running and growing a small business.

Alternatively, you can contact me here to talk about how I can help you create the stand out you need in your business to create a memorable, engaging story about what you do – we will take a creative approach and work together to understand and craft your difference. I would be delighted to help. In the meantime, I am off to polish my office of one pound coins…well, they say change is as good as a rest.