“One of the most important assets any organization has is its reputation.”
What does your company stand for? What do people think of when they think of your business, product or service? What do they think of when they think of you? When people think of Apple Computers, they: “Think Different.” When they see Charmin, they think: “Squeezably Soft.” BMW is, “The Ultimate Driving Machine.” Pepsi is the “New Generation” and so on.
Entrepreneurs and small business owners can also differentiate themselves with this kind of branding strategy. In fact it is even MORE important for smaller organizations to set themselves apart. Particularly if they are competing with the BIG GUYS! Remember, your customer’s perceptions of WHO you are is all the matters to them. Who you really are is quite meaningless!
Often times your reputation is wrapped up in what advertising guru, Bill Bernbach called the “unique selling proposition.” What sets you apart from the crowd? What do you do that no one else does? For me it’s “Providing answers for your small business.”
How can I back that up?
We hold Small Biz seminars and classes in marketing for entrepreneurs and business owners.
Every Monday night I teach the Dales Carnegie Sales Advantage Class in Long Beach.
Marketingquestions.com (our web site) has over 300 pages of articles for the entrepreneur and small business owner.
I do a weekly radio show that focuses on educating small business owners.
We offer a free small business success manual that provides answers to small business challenges.
We email our “Small Biz Update” to over 1000 subscribers every month.
We provide answers to our clients and members in the form of coaching and consulting sessions
We consistently communicate our unique claim and branding message in every promotional message employed. It is in our web site, in our brochure, on our business cards and even in the conversations we have with people. I don’t know anyone that offers the same combination of services that wrap around providing “answers for small business owners.”
Now remember, this is not a Mark Deo commercial. The purpose of my yammering on about how spiffy I am (NOT!) is merely to demonstrate how YOU can develop your own branding message and unique selling proposition.
THINK….. How are you different? What is unique about your company, product or service? What do you do to support that uniqueness? How can you consistently communicate that branding strategy?
If you’re interested in learning more about reputation, branding and the unique selling proposition go to the web site at www.sbanetwork.org.