How to Stand Out from the Crowd

 

Hi everybody. Mike here from M Business and Tradie Australia.  Today I want to talk to you about how to stand out in this trying time and in this crisis moment that we’re in. 

 

How do we stand out above all the noise, above all the other services?

 

Everyone else’s ramping up! They’re sharing what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. Bu So, how do we stand up if someone comes to you to and say, what makes you different? Why should we go with your services rather than the other people that are out there? What do you say? What is it that you do differently that other people don’t? 

 

Now you know, it’s simple. I’m not just talking about when a person asks you that, I’m actually talking about everything else. Like your business cards, you know, everything that represents you such as your 

 

• Website
• Facebook account
• Google my business

 

It could be your van or it could be the front of your shop. 

 

What is it that makes you stand out above your competitors? 

 

So, you know, often I’ll go to a website and I’ll see services. The website might say, we will service all makes and models. We will do certain things. But this doesn’t excite me. You know what I’m trying to say. 

 

 

When you go on to somewhere and you see certain things, it doesn’t excite me to sort of go, because there is no “WOW” factor that set’s the person/business/trade above everybody else. They’re not giving anything extra. 

 

So today I want to go through four different things that can really help you with giving that X-FACTOR to help you stand out. What is it that’s going to make you that extraordinary to help you stand out against your competitors. 

 

Give a Guarantee

 

So number one I really believe is to give a guarantee. Now, growing up, I used to listen to that advert, which was American, what was it? The Federal Express, you know, and you do it with the American accent “when it absolutely positively has to be there overnight.”

 

 

Even in their actual mission statement, they guarantee that if you want to get it somewhere, it’s going to get there overnight. 

 

Similarly, the mission statement here at M Business in regards to websites and delivery is this, we say that “We get things done on time at a fixed price with no surprises.” That’s us going up against other website developers and other people in the industry. 

 

So what is it that makes you stand above you know, your competitors? So first of all, give a guarantee. Give something that, that gives that customer a feeling like, wow, that that gives me that feeling that I can trust this guy and he’s going to be able to do what he delivers. So that’s the first thing. 

 

Impeccable Customer Service

 

Second thing is, which I believe we’ve lost over the years, is the impeccable customer service. Now, you know, we, you know in the old days you used to go into what it was service station to get some petrol and you’d have driveway service and it was just incredible. 

 

I believe we’ve got to go back to the “the old school” method. We’ve got to do things differently to stand out. Some of the things that we can do are go back to that old school. Go back to handwritten messages.

 

 

Go back to doing things. I mean, this never fails. I’ve got customers that still do this where they’ll get a person’s birthday for one of their customers and they’ll send them a scratchy or they’ll send up a scratchy out and say, if you give us a referral or just a thank you,  they’ll give a scratchy or they’ll give something in return. 

 

All old fashioned customer service can’t go wrong. And not even that, just being courteous, just saying you, if you’re going to be somewhere at 10 o’clock, you’d be there at 10 o’clock. If you’re going to say that, you know it’s just taking that little extra. 

 

Be Innovative

 

So the third thing that I want to talk about is being innovative. That means constantly looking to be innovative. That’s what’s will put you above your customer. 

 

So what do I mean by that? Well, it’s a little bit like if you’re a pro surfer, you’re out on the wave. Being in Southeast Queensland, we know there’s probably a lot of surfers and you’re just waiting for that perfect wave. How do you wait for that perfect wave? And when do you know when to jump on that perfect wave? And it’s pretty much, it’s because you know the industry because you know certain things. 

 

So that’s what I encourage you to do right now. This is the most prime time to be innovative. There have been some innovative people that are already doing things that were previously doing distilleries but are now manufacturing hand sanitizers. 

 

I saw her in the news yesterday that there is a restaurant. It was an organic restaurant, you know, those types of cafes that are changed into an organic supermarket because they’ve had that extra stock. 

 

 

So right now it’s time to just change a little tiny bit. We talked about adjusting and all the rest of it, but start looking for that innovation. Start looking where you can get ahead. Where you can do things differently. How you can offer those products and services that are slightly above the rest, and maybe a niche that you might not have seen before. But now you see it, then you can go for it. 

 

Had the boldness to be able to go! Yeah, this is the time. 

 

If you’ve been in business long enough, you’re going to be able to be like that. That sailor on America’s cup that sort of goes, okay, he comes to when he comes to win, pick up the sales. Let’s take it. Let’s take it to the finish line. 

 

This is your moment. This is your moment to be innovative in your industry and really put your head above the water and be that next level. 

 

Solve Problems

 

The fourth thing that I say that’s really going to put your head it, is to solve problems. What I mean by that is this: A lot of us when we’re out, and we’ve been doing this for a long time, sometimes we forget the basics. Sometimes we forget to listen to our customers.

 

Sometimes we forget to sort of taking things one step back. Tag some more time with that customer. Ask more questions about what their problem actually is and do your 180% to solve that person’s problem and some. That’s that extra. It’s the extra that makes you extraordinary. It’s a bit like the customer service but it’s to solve the problem and to look and identify for other opportunities. 

 

So other words, you might be fixing something or you might be able to, you might be giving, some sort of a service to a client and then you see something else that’s gone wrong. Rather than just leaving it because you’re busy or you’ve got to get to that next client. 

 

You know, it’s those moments that you can be innovative and say, did you know that you know you’ve got a problem with X, Y, Z?  Did you know that if you don’t service that you may have a problem in the future?

 

Now, this might be like the ‘basics’, but when you are busy and when we were before, we probably didn’t do those things. You just got on with the next job because you are busy. But now things are starting to slow down. These are the times that we can sort of drawback a little bit more.

 

Ask more questions from our customers. Ask more areas that they’re wanting to develop and then deliver impeccable customer service and deliver on time without mistakes and then its the follow-up that’s needed. 

 

CONCLUSION

 

So let me just cover that again. Number one, give a guarantee. What is your guarantee? You know, it’s a bit like an elevator speech. Do you want, I mean, does everybody have an elevator speech?