I’m having a hard time with this lesson. The struggle comes from thinking I already KNEW this: Business marketing really IS about YOU and not about ME.
Where’s the struggle? Websites, brochures, business cards and first contacts are crammed with information about me. Even this blog is really more about me than it is about you.
It’s natural. I want to convince you to do business with me. That’s my goal. So it’s logical to cram every contact with information about me in hopes something will appeal to you.
Logic doesn’t apply to marketing. If it did, it would be easy to formulate the perfect marketing pitch. As managers, we all want to find that magic formula that draws the huge throng of customers. The formula doesn’t exist.
It really is about being remarkable. I have to ask myself daily if I’m offering anything remarkable or if I’m just offering the same ole stuff using (what I hope are) remarkable words.
I am remarkable. I know that. I’ve done amazing things. But when it comes to offering the truly remarkable, fear steps in and I pull back to the safe zone. I started an astronomy club in a very remote area. I built the website for the club and that site is getting over 1,000 unique visitors per month. That’s remarkable. So I know I’m remarkable. But in my business I’ve fallen back to “safe”.
I’m going to show more courage! Dagnabbit!
You’re busy. You don’t have time to read through volumes of website stuff but I can’t resist having a million different “pitches” on my own site. It takes courage to trash all that fluff and cut to the 30 second chase. I’m going to do it.
I know if we work together you’ll be happy. I’m so confident of that I guarantee you’ll be happy. So now I just need to make it clear to you what I offer…and it has to be remarkable or you have no reason to call me.
You should think about this lesson I’m struggling with. This is the heart of building our businesses. We need to provide what our customers want—but they won’t actually tell us. And we have to be remarkable—so they talk about us.
There are millions of websites. People are hammered by thousands of ads per day. People are busy and distracted. But when that “solution” flies past their radar they catch it.
The answer isn’t in placing high with the search engines. If we are remarkable, they’ll find us.
Chris Reich, Author of TeachU’s Business Talk Blog