Marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing. That’s what we’re going to be talking about today. How to market yourself. We all have to be amazing marketers and salespeople. Yuck. No one wants to be a salesperson, it’s slimy and gross. But if you’re passionate about your product, you have to be able to market it and you have to be able to sell it. If you’re passionate about it and enjoy talking about it, you are now the salesperson. If you’re a mother and you love your children, you just want to share them with the world and you want to look at how fantastic they are. A, they’re an addictive hobby and B, you are the salesperson to the world when you’re talking about them. That’s the kind of what it is with your business. You can’t sort of look at being a salesperson as a bad thing.
Don’t Advertise in a Slimy Way
It’s a good thing. It means you’re passionate about it. Just don’t do any weird, slimy tactics. I strongly believe that if you want to sell ice to an Eskimo, you shouldn’t be in the business that you’re in. You should be trying to sell ice to someone who needs ice. There’s always enough people out there who need ice. You want to try and make sure that you find your target client. If you’re able to find your target market, it makes it easier to market to them and you know that you’re doing the right things. If all of your advertising said ice now available extra hard ice and you’re an Eskimo, they’ll be like, ‘I already got pretty good ice’ and it makes the sale incredibly difficult and bridges on how ethical is that as well? I guess it’s a bit funny. I wouldn’t do it. There are so many people out there who need ice. Don’t just sell ice to an Eskimo. That doesn’t mean you’re a good salesperson. It means you’re a terrible person. Try to find your target market and market it to them.
How Are You Different?
You might think, ‘Oh, but my service is exactly like everyone else’s,’ or you might be the opposite and be like, ‘My service is so much better than everyone else’s, but I just don’t know how to tell everyone.’ Either way, think about what your ideal client would look like. How would they act? What would be the thing that they want from you? So many places, let’s take a fish and chip shop as an example. A fish and chip shop, your local, looks just like my fish and chip shop, my local. Your mates, fish and chip shop, their local. Every fish and chip shop looks about the same. There’s no real differentiator between them. If they created a differentiator, all of a sudden they become stratospherically successful and they no longer have a fish and chip shop. They have this fantastic boutique whatever.
Let’s take that same comparison and look at places such as fast food joints. We’ve got options for fast food places. You’ve got the clown, the king and the colonel. They all sell the same shit. They all sell chicken. They all sell burgers. They all sell heart attacks. But you need to try and work out which one you want. How are they marketing themselves differently? You’ve got this clown that makes kids happy. Then you’ve got this fat chicken dude that makes fat chicken people happy. Then you’ve got this burger king dude who makes amazing burgers at Hungry Jack’s for some reason. They’ve identified themselves differently. They all sell the same stuff, but we always associate chicken with KFC. We associate faster food with McDonald’s and we think the burgers are better at Hungry Jack’s. So there’s a differentiator they’ve created.
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Think Outside the Box
For your industry, if you have a fish and chip shop, maybe the differentiator is that you make homemade potato scallops and the homemade potato scallops that you make are made in some oil that’s better for your body. Whatever the case is, try to work out, even if you sell exactly the same stuff as your competitor, how you can be different from your competitor and how you can make their clients your clients without it being competition.
Try to Be in Competition With No Other Business
While KFC and McDonald’s and Hungry Jack’s are all competing, they’re not really. They all offer something slightly different. Everyone goes there for a different reason. Hungry Jacks has onion rings, McDonald’s has happy meals and yeah, Hungry Jack’s has something similar and KFC has something similar, but they’re all there for a different reason and they all serve a different purpose depending on what they’re going for. If you’re selling pies and there’s a fish and chip shop, the fish and chip shop is your competitor, but if you’re selling pies, you have something different. If you have a fish and chip shop and down the road, there’s another fish and chip shop, think about how you can make yourself different.
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Talk to Your Client
Ask your clients. If you don’t know yourself, you don’t have to go into the research and try and nut it out. Just see who comes to your business. If people that are coming in there seem to be local businesses or local people, market to local businesses or the local people. Make sure that you’re just working out where the people are coming from and have every effort that you do resonate with that client because they will go from being the person that’s just coming in there for a quick feed to the person that only goes there for a feed. That is a big difference because they’ll tell all their friends and everyone else and you’ll become the known place to go.
I know I’ve used food a lot in this example and it may be because it’s coming up to lunchtime and I haven’t eaten yet, but it could be because it’s just an easy universal way to explain for all businesses. If you’re selling Internet plans and there’s another person selling Internet plans, maybe the plans that you’re selling are more appropriate for an older community and the older community is enjoying the Internet plans that you sell because they have Australian speaking, very clear speaking people on the phone and they don’t have to stay on hold for ages. Maybe the Internet plans that you’re selling are super fast, low ping, low latency, low jitter, and you’re more targeting the game that’s around the place. They’re both selling Internet connections, but now all of a sudden you are able to specialise in the service that you’re giving and make sure that you’re focusing on the right client.
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Advertise Your Speciality
This goes with every industry. If you’re a smash repair place, just start selling. You can obviously fix any car. There are very few differences between the cars when it comes to a crumble, but if you’re able to say you specialise in fixing Porsche vehicles and you’re their preferred supplier and here are all the awards that you’ve got around a Porsche, you can be sure that people that have a Porsche will feel like they’re going to get a better service going to you.
If you’re a plumber and you can obviously replace a tap washer, put in a hot water system or anything in between, and then say you’re the hot water specialist, people go ‘Oh, that sounds good, let’s do that. I’m going to go to that person.’ It gives them a feeling that you are the expert in the field, the experts in the trade as it would be.
The Final Word
Have a think about how you can separate yourself out. If you want ideas and you want us to do an audit on your business, email through and I’m happy to give you a call personally and I’ll help you out with it. Take that up and we’ll see where we go. Stay good.
