The A to Z challenge and writing about woman entrepreneurs. You may read the previous posts here.
B is for Business Plan
Z is for Zest
The average customer is looking for a specialist, not a vague offering from a generalist. There are too many offerings in the market which are substandard and not up to par. This often lead to disappointment with the products or services that have been purchased. The expert is who they hunt for through word of mouth recommendations within their friend circle. That expertise is what the customers are willing to spend their hard earned money on.
This means you need to be an expert at whatever you are offering. This involves have a great zest for the business that you are building. To train yourself and practice till you are truly the only person who can offer your potential customers what they need. And even that is not enough. Your offerings need to be simple and clear for easy accessibility. The message should be clear for your potential customers to pick up.
How you position yourself will have a huge impact on your success as an entrepreneur. A common mistake many newbies make is trying to be everything to everyone. While it may seem like a good idea to make money instantly, in the long run your mission statement as a business owner will be completely muddied and there will be no clarity among potential customers regarding what you actually offer. The confusion that results from this ambiguity will harm your bottom line.
Even if it goes against your grain, try and position yourself as an expert in one area as you enter the market. Subsequently as your customers begin to know, like and trust you enough to try something else that you offer, it will be easier to convert them. This brings us to the question about projecting yourself as an expert. What exactly do you need to do here? You can start by providing free content to your customers on your own website. When they perceive value in what you are sharing, they will retain you as an expert in their minds.
Make yourself more accessible by being available in many places online. Besides your own social media pages and the company website, you may consider going on other websites as a guest contributer. Be it a blog posts or a podcast interview, continue to provide high value content to the customers that showcase your knowledge and boost your expert status. If possible write a book. It's one of the easiest ways to claim credibility.
We have established that creating expert status involves providing your customers with quality content. This will differ from industry to industry. In the exercise there are pointers on how you can develop the kind of content that will provide value to your customers.
The Exercise
What You Will Need: Paper and pen, some time to introspect
Decide what you would like your primary focus to be in the business. This will depend on who your intended audience is. What you sell to children, will not be the same as what you sell to their mothers. At the same time what you sell to a working woman will not necessarily be the same as what you sell to a grandmother.
It is helpful if you have profiled your ideal client as it will allow you to know what they want. Once you have understood their requirement and then seen how you can meet it through your business offerings, you need to gain a deep knowledge of the topic. Being willing to improvise after listening to your customers is very important.
Think of what you have in common with your ideal client. What special interest do you share? Have you been through what they are struggling with? How can your experience and knowdelge benefit them in the current scenario? Now work out how this can become a unique offering.
Enhancing your expertise is something that can be done at every stage from novice to old hand. Updating your skills by attending new courses, or reading up about new findings and research can both help in getting you to improve your knowledge. The more you know, the easier it is for you to find the perfect solution for your customers.
Once you know who you need to get in touch with, what they are looking for, and how you are going to provide it to them, all you need is the zest to keep on going!
No comments:
Post a Comment