Find your story and win more business

 

Discover your story. It will allow you to engage the imagination (and emotion) of your marketplace.

We all know that we are selling into a marketplace that has suffered a few kicks in the ribs to say the least. Most businesses I know are admitting to a decrease in sales of around 30 to 40 per cent when they compare their sales to previous years.

The quality of their product or service didn't change, their sales people haven't lost their edge. What happened was that consumer confidence was lost. People now feel nervous about purchasing. Fear has entered into the selling equation and the whole sales process has just got a lot more emotional.

Granted, it will take plenty of reassurance to get back that 40% loss of consumer confidence. However, as a driver of a business you now have the task to make sure that your business is in the 60% of successful sales that do get the order.

This is not a conversation about bigger, cheaper, stronger, longer or fatter products or services. It's about getting chosen and that's emotional.

 

Find your story and win more business.

A web-based business came to see us recently with an expertise in online Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems. They were comfortable claiming that they could improve existing online sales by at least 30% using their know-how. This is a fact that they had found dealing with a certain type of online business.

But are they really going to sell anyone with that fact. How often do were hear promises like that and start wondering about the loopholes. Even I found myself wondering how much I had to really outlay to get that kind of return. Features don't make the sale.

Heidelberg has been the leader in printing machines for decades. Even though they are nearly twice as expensive as most of their Japanese counterparts which incidentally, deliver twice the speed of print and heap more features. People don't buy Heidelbergs for the features they buy it because of the emotion they feel. The Heidelberg name and brand makes them feel safe. It comes with prestige and trust. That is what creates the sale in this instance.

Yet, we all fall into the trap of creating facts around our product or service believing that bigger, cheaper, stronger, longer or fatter products or services is going to make a difference to being chosen. The truth is that it's either not believed nor significantly rated when the purchase is being considered.

Let me prove my point to you by continuing on with this same company. You notice if and when your opinion changes.

 

The story that positions

The Head of this CRM firm is a guy called Joe Matthew. He is an American now living in Australia.

When he was over in the States he headed up the online Customer Relationship Management team for Dell Computers. Over a period of 5 years, as he and his team were improving their CRM experience, actual online sales for Dell grew from 5 million sales per day to $53 million per day.

Are you impressed? I know I was when we uncovered his story. Joe then went to MicroSoft to work with them on their CRM system.

This is massive social proof and would put anyone at ease buying his services. Joe knows how to create paying customers, online.

Two years ago after getting married, Joe came out to Australia and began offering his services to medium-sized businesses that wanted to make the jump to being a bigger online business. With modest success, because he didn’t have his story in place. He was still going off the features of his teams expertise.

 

Now add Personal Branding

Never underestimate the power of personal branding to help you get noticed and differentiated

Our story continues...

It took a long time for Joe to adopt and use his personal brand in his business (SEO-Joe). Like most business owners he felt he would want to eventually sell the business and thought that building a personal brand would take away from the goodwill of the business.

In the short term that is true, but in the long term you can transfer the goodwill into the business. Think about Richard Branson and Virgin. Virgin exists without Richard even though he has a well developed brand himself.

Having a personal brand like SEO-Joe reassures the market of his enormous expertise and brings certainty to his personal brand.

His first month online with Twitter for example, his mantle, SEOJoe, caused 3,500 people to sign up to receive his feeds, because of the inbuilt "authority" in his name. Note, he does have the expertise to back it up.

If you follow this link you will uncover that "Australia's 8th most connected person on twitter, after Kevin Rudd, with the handle of seo_joe." (http://twitterholic.com/top100/followers/bylocation/Australia/ ).

In other words when he writes on Twitter he is the 8th most followed person online in Australia. That is because his handle SEO Joe says he knows what he is talking about in the realm of internet SEO and customer retention strategies.

Personal branding is a powerful way you can empower your business to own a bigger piece of the marketplace.

By the way did you find yourself reassured about Joe and his business by the end of the article?

From our perspective each person and every business has a story waiting to be uncovered and exalted. That is really what creating you brand is really about.

It has always been more than just a logo. Your brand is your story. It should inspire the imagination of your customers, internal and external. It also stands for your market promise and so positions the goal posts on what you are going to deliver.

 

Influence and brands in a changing marketplace

In these tricky times ahead you need to make sure that you don't go back on the market promises of your brand. Whether your brand has always stood for prestige or value you need any business innovation ensure that your brand promise is maintained.

Dell going into shopping centres like Chadstone is risky as they have always been able to use the online lack of shop front to justify holding your money for two weeks. Going into shopping centres makes them compete with stores that have computers ready to go.

Pierre Cardin I notice is trying to re-launch its brand again through luggage. Personally I don’t think they will have any hope of restoring it to its former glory. They killed the brand in the 90’s when it actually stood for prestige. The brand was sold off. A company started selling cheap underwear through it and used the prestige brand for a few quick cheap sales until the market realised that it had gone back on its market promise of exclusivity. All that work to build a brand over decades decimated in under three years.

 

Final Note of creating your personal story

My recommendation for businesses during these times is to find the story behind your brand that will grow your business through engaging the emotion, imagination and trust of your clients.

In Australia we like to deal with people and businesses we know and trust. Many years ago there was a survey done across the world on the word "quality". In Australia, unlike any other country, quality meant "mateship". In other words, a product and service  you know something about, can tell a friend about...endorse as a referral.

That's the story we need to find, something someone else can say about you. The problem is, that we don't think to structure our influence in that way. Instead we let others come up with how they talk about us. Most people don't really know what you do or your point of difference. That is what creating your story and personal brand is all about. It's finding an authentic way others cant appreciate and talk about you in the marketplace. Secondly, it also about ensuring that what they say you can deliver.

Influence is not only in the sale but also in the referral.

What I have noticed in my practice of influence is that creating a personal brand in addition to your business brand, vastly differentiates you from you competition. Together they could keep your business out of price wars and still gain more business even in a shrinking market.

After all...goods and services are still being sold, you just need to be the one they prefer and choose.

Warm regards,

Monika Evers

on Influence

 

 

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