In most jobs, sometimes the only thing your customers and clients look for is for you to get the basics right. For instance, if someone has a business bank account with you, they expect you to charge the right amounts, pay the right amounts, deal with the basic transactions and be there if there’s a problem.
It’s what you do over and above what’s expected that starts to make you attractive, better and different. It’s this area of performance that makes you referable and talked about.
The majority of my coaching clients are in executive positions where technical competence gets you a ticket to the game. The problem is that these people think it’s enough to be technically brilliant. Wrong! They fail to grasp how competitive it is out there and how all of their competition are equally competent in the key areas. They don’t move from basic to brilliant.
What are you doing to turn your basic into your brilliant? How can you convince the marketplace that you’re beyond commoditizing?
Often the change you need is quite small. You don’t need to be radically better or different. Take the McDonalds hamburger. Did you know there were burgers before McDonalds? What Ray Croc, founder of the global billion dollar franchise, actually did was to tweak the offering of a couple of brothers flipping burgers to make it duplicatable. Same stuff, just slightly different.
The key is in the perception of others. If they see you as the same as everyone else, then even if you’re much better and different, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got to be seen to be different. Your brilliant has got to be noticed.
I deal a lot with good business people who are poor at marketing and selling themselves. They don’t communicate their brilliance well and they don’t educate people properly on how they are different to or better than their competition. That’s why they struggle to win new business, get the referrals they want and make any kind of impact with their marketing.
Three tips to help you do this:
- Go beyond the basics. Do something better than average. Technical competence and basic service are a given. Everybody does that. What else do you do that is closer to brilliance than basic?
- Ask your stakeholders. Get people’s opinions on what you do really well. Probe as to what could be your competitive advantage. See where your basics become brilliant. Feedback is fabulous! Sometimes you get too close to your own stuff to see how it could go from good to great.
- Communicate your differences. Every time you go networking or have a business conversation with someone, they are desperate to know how you’re different from everyone else that does what you do. If you have nothing extra to differentiate yourself, of you can’t articulate what it is, you’re looking and sounding like everyone else. Is that what you want?
- What are you doing to give people a reason to choose you, think of you, endorse you, talk about you and buy into you? That’s any better or different to your competition? It needs to be more than the basics. And it needs to be communicated so that people notice it. Otherwise you will continue to be the best kept secret in the world.
Rob Brown is an in-demand networking coach and speaker on business networking, LinkedIn, referrals, trust and likeability. If you want to make more money, win more business or accelerate your career through networking, go to www.therobbrown.com