Marketing your business (or making sure you have a strong marketing and communication team) is crucial to growing your organization. Since you can't be the best at everything, create your messages around why your products or services are great or unique.
Develop your Unique Value Proposition (UVP): What do you do differently than your competitors?
Knowing what you do differently is very important. Communicating what makes you different as part of your marketing strategy is equally important.
I find that when I press business leaders with a series of questions, we can really uncover the core of what makes them different and how they add value to the marketplace. So often though, they take their own stories for granted, and that means they end up in the same crowd as their competition.
Ask yourself and your team:
- Whats your story?
- Who are you?
- Why are you in this business?
- What do you do for people?
- What do you do for people that's different than your competitors?
- Do you serve a specific market?
- Do you use a different system?
- Do you offer better service?
- If you were standing right next to a competitor right now, whats the difference between your two companies?
These types of questions can be answered during a strategic planning session, when you work through your vision, mission and values to help develop strategic priorities that will move your organization forward.
In short, understand your organization's core values, what you offer, and who you serve. Figure out where your business excels, and develop and market your USP. This will help you stick out from the crowd and show potential customers how you can solve their problem better than anyone else.
Ready to start the strategic planning process?
Learn more about how working with a facilitator can maximize the value of your strategy meeting:
