As a growing business owner are you getting caught in the hyper competitive market environment? When you work alone it is often difficult to fulfill all the roles you have to play. So how do you stay competitive? At Mind Masters I often harp on the importance of staying focused to the high priority, high payoff areas of the business, but when you are doing it all, everything seems “high priority”. But being in business means staying connected to the people who do business with you as well as the people who refer business to you.
To stand out in your market there needs to be a level of interaction that you consistently put forth; developing a personal brand answers to this idea of connecting. Your customers want to know who you are; remember the more they know about you, the more they can feel a sense of trust. Several of my clients send out monthly newsletters with market, real estate or financial updates, but in those emails there is always something personal. One shares a recipe that he liked and the other adds a riddle, that gets answered the following week. Your materials, behavior and connection with your audience help build your brand. Connect by being “real” to them reveal the person they want to know.
Another area for connecting is in your networking. I am not talking about going into a group and handing out business cards. I am referring here to meeting regularly with advocates who refer business to you. It requires “reaching them with information that matters to them” and having some real interest in developing the relationship. Ask them about themselves so that you can better support them with articles, events that may be of interest or people they need to meet. One of my clients who markets merchant services wanted some information for a prospective client to solidify the relationship. I was able to connect him with someone who works in that segment of the business. His prospect is now his client, because he was willing to take the time to look for a resource and I got to go out to lunch. If you use LinkedIn, this is precisely what they suggest you do.
Connecting with your ideal customer requires some new approaches. Your web site will not create any significant prospect attraction for the person who has never met you. Using e-mail as a means to keep connected (it is not dead) will keep you ahead of the competition, and help you build on going relationships with people you have connected with. The information you send out becomes information they can pass along to others, you stay connected and so do they.
Challenge: Check yourself. How have you stayed top of mind lately? How have you promoted your personal brand, showed interest in your advocates or sent your clients and prospects something that kept you in front of them? If something has worked for you, let us know, we’d like to print your story.
Until next month – stay connected.
