Saturday, July 25, 2009
Are You Taking Advantage of Your Uniqueness in Your Business?
When my kids were young, I had to chuckle at their desire to conform to being different. I can't tell you how many times I've heard kids say, "I'm weird," as a badge of honor.
As kids, we aspire to be unique. But when we enter the business world, we tend to lose that.
We feel that if we don't fit in to the professional "norm" we'll fall behind everybody else. So our promotion becomes stilted and formal. We try to impress them with how "professional" we are.
It's crazy! Will people look at our formal, "businesslike" presentations and say, "Oooh! That person must be really smart! I want to do business with them!"
Of course not! But, having that nagging inner fear that if people really see us in our business, they'll reject us, we try to appear as something we mistakenly believe will impress others.
Someone told me once of a Realtor who has taken the opposite approach. She calls herself "The Pet Lover's Realtor."
Every picture of herself in her advertising shows her with her dog. She advertises in local pet magazines and newsletters. She takes out ads in the PET section of of her newspaper's classified section. She's in the local parenting magazines, always with her dog.
Guess which Realtor is the biggest seller in that city. That's right: "The Pet Lover's Realtor."
Rather than hiding behind some mask of professionalism, she embraces who she is, what she loves. And like-minded people flock to her to do business with her.
Take some time to look at yourself, who you are, what makes you unique. Look for ways to use it in your marketing. Let people see the real person behind the business. You might be surprised what it can do.
When my kids were young, I had to chuckle at their desire to conform to being different. I can't tell you how many times I've heard kids say, "I'm weird," as a badge of honor.
As kids, we aspire to be unique. But when we enter the business world, we tend to lose that.
We feel that if we don't fit in to the professional "norm" we'll fall behind everybody else. So our promotion becomes stilted and formal. We try to impress them with how "professional" we are.
It's crazy! Will people look at our formal, "businesslike" presentations and say, "Oooh! That person must be really smart! I want to do business with them!"
Of course not! But, having that nagging inner fear that if people really see us in our business, they'll reject us, we try to appear as something we mistakenly believe will impress others.
Someone told me once of a Realtor who has taken the opposite approach. She calls herself "The Pet Lover's Realtor."
Every picture of herself in her advertising shows her with her dog. She advertises in local pet magazines and newsletters. She takes out ads in the PET section of of her newspaper's classified section. She's in the local parenting magazines, always with her dog.
Guess which Realtor is the biggest seller in that city. That's right: "The Pet Lover's Realtor."
Rather than hiding behind some mask of professionalism, she embraces who she is, what she loves. And like-minded people flock to her to do business with her.
Take some time to look at yourself, who you are, what makes you unique. Look for ways to use it in your marketing. Let people see the real person behind the business. You might be surprised what it can do.
Labels: entrepreneurship, marketing, mindset
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