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Importance of Branding: What's in a Name?
Branding is perhaps the most important facet of any business--beyond product, distribution, pricing, or location. A company's brand is its definition in the world, the name that identifies it to itself and the marketplace. A model may be beautiful,...
Raising Your Rates Can *Increase* Your Business
How many times have I heard literal horror stories from Internet business startups? Too many times to count! I get emails from those who just simply can’t seem to make a living online. They’ve tried everything (according to them) and are still...
The 5W's of World Class Customer Service Training
The preamble to the United States Constitution begins, 'we, the
people.' I feel strongly that we, the people, are what make the
difference in life, both personally and professionally.
The interaction anyone has at any level with your company,...
The Advantages Of RSS Websites
RSS - or what is now known as "Really Simple Syndication" - is a
file format that is incorporated by Internet users in their
websites to allow for 'web syndication', making their web
content available in a format that can be universally...
Which Web Business Model Is Right For You?
Let's say you're a furniture dealer and you’ve decided to sell your products online. What sort of web business model is most suitable for you? Web business models differ as to the kind of skills and the specific responsibilities involved. Each...
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Get Out of Your Head to Improve Your Business
The classic novel by Robert Louis Stevenson tells the story of
one man's struggle with his duel personalities - Dr Jekyll, the
kind and respected physician, and the violent Mr Hyde.
But if you think living as two separate people is hard, spare a
thought for the one-person entrepreneur. To survive and succeed
as a solo enterprise in the business world we need to develop
not just two, but a multitude of alter-egos.
We have to be the company accountant, marketer, operations
manager, chief executive officer, customer service manager and
general gofer. We have jump from balancing the books, to
stuffing envelopes, from formulating our strategic direction
from an overall market perspective to handling our customers.
Most of those roles are skill based. To master them you do a
course, read a book, and/or get the appropriate tools or
software to handle the task. You could even employ someone to do
them for you, if money was no object.
However, there is one alter-ego that is all to easily missed,
but arguably is the most important of all.
You see, even though the above roles that you must adopt are
very different, they all have one thing in common - they are all
roles WITHIN your business.
This critical role is OUTSIDE your business.
If you really want to succeed, you must also take the time and
effort to BE your customer. To mentally step out of your
business and imagine you are a potential customer. To look at
your business with fresh, objective eyes, as if you were a new
customer seeing it for the first time.
What would this person see?
Look at your product, service, business and marketing through
their eyes, not yours. Don't be fooled, this is not as easy as
it sounds. Because we have intimate knowledge, emotional
attachment and have invested so much time and effort it is all
to easy get stuck, only seeing your business in one way - OUR
OWN! A new customers will be looking at everything you do,
and have done with virgin eyes.
What would your advertising, branding, all that you communicate
about your products, services, and business say this person?
Assume that they have no prior knowledge of your business and
what you do. Your company's name is nothing
more than a
meaningless label to them. Your service or product a mystery. (A
mystery, that quite frankly, your customer will not care to
decipher. That is not their job, but yours, to make it crystal
clear.)
Does your message inspire confidence and trust? Is it
understandable to an outsider? Is it offering what they want?
All this may appear to be stating the obvious, but doing it
properly is a lot more difficult than understanding the concept.
It requires an emotional shift, putting aside what you
WANT and seeing what IS.
Recently I had direct experience of this difficulty in getting
out my head and into my potential customer's.
I asked a couple of friends give me their feedback of a software
program I had written. While reading one lengthy response from a
good friend, a strong sense of frustration grew inside me. I
started to get annoyed at what I thought were his 'stupid'
comments.
"What was wrong with HIM? It is obvious what that section
is for!"
My first reaction was to emailing him, explaining his errors,
and point out where he was going wrong.
Halfway through writing that email I stop myself. I suddenly
realized how defensive I was being. The reason I had asked him
to review the demo was to uncover any weak areas that required
further work. And here I was taking his honest feedback
personally. I remembered that it was the first time he had seen
the software, whereas I knew it inside and out, and back to
front. Suddenly, his 'stupid' comments became a rich source of
improvements that I was thankful for.
It is important that you make the time to take a big step back
from your enterprise. Forget that it is your little baby that
you have spent hours, days, months or years working on. Look at
it afresh with new eyes and a calm emotion-free detachment, as
if it were someone else's project and you are seeing it for the
first time.
Once you can see your business through your customers' eyes, it
will become clear which improvements, changes and alterations
will boost the success of your business.
About the author:
Lee Kendall is the owner and creator of Key Comments.
http://www.keycomments.com/ Software to help you discover what
your customers really want.
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