It is sad but true, that your opinion of yourself is rarely the same as others opinion of you. The same goes in business and especially in mid-sized businesses where many company’s perception of their capabilities sometime don’t match the marketplaces opinion of them.  Many can’t grow and don’t know why but the answer is very clear if you are willing to look in the mirror with the same objectivity that an outsider would look at you.

Ok, so you believe that your product or service is special or unique, but can you clearly define why? Because the marketplace may not be seeing your point of difference and if they don’t, they won’t engage with you and if they don’t engage with you don’t get the chance to tell your story and make a sale.

So, what is the solution for those businesses that struggle to get what is sometimes a great story out there. The first thing is you need to be is brutally honest about what you do, what are the problems you solve and what are the opportunities you create.

The customers look to see if your service or product is worth what you charge and what value does it create for their business. It is purely the customers opinion of your product or service that counts as opposed to your opinion. I see many companies bewildered as to why the market cannot see the value as well as they can and that in itself is the problem they must solve to engage with the marketplace, its not your opinion of you that counts.

When working with companies on growth strategies the first thing I ask them is to define what they do and then why someone would talk to them , meet with them and then buy from them. Tears well in my eyes when many companies and even their salespeople have motherhood type statements like it is our customer service or it’s our people, that says nothing and means nothing. Few can nail it and if you can’t nail it how can you decide who to talk to. If you are not clear who is your ideal client or in other words who will buy from you then how can you decide and implement your marketing strategy if you don’t know who you are targeting?

I see this all the time; the markets perception of a company and the companies own perception are not aligned. You need to know what you do better than anyone else, you need to be able to prove that with case studies or testimonials. You need to be able to talk to specific market segments in words that will make their ears prick up, you need to be able to say I know your problems and I can fix them for you.

A good growth strategy needs to be able to stand up to totally scrutiny it needs to be tested regularly and it needs to be known by everyone in the company. It needs to be on your lips, it needs to be in all your marketing, and it needs to be the backbone of your websites messaging.

The key take away is you need to get your messaging accurate for the solution you provide and then focus on a market where you can win, or you will find growth next to impossible.

Send or post what your growth challenge to us and we will reply in one paragraph our solution, no fee.

Mark Hood

mark@revenuegrowthgroup.com.au

Growth Strategist