It’s Not Who You Know It’s Who Knows You! The small business guide to raising your profits by raising your profile
By David Avrin- local author and our special guest for the meeting on June 3rd!
David Avrin introduces his book by explaining why it is more important for people to know you than for you to know them. “The fact is that you can never know all your prospective customers, but if you’re going to attract new customers or clients, they’d better know you” (p xx). This makes perfect sense if you think about how getting spot on TV to discuss your product can improve your sales. It doesn’t affect who you know, but it doesn’t increase the amount of people who know you and therefore your product can now be sold to them. How do you get your name out there? Be prepared, take opportunities that are presented to you “to showcase your expertise, product, service, location, name, jingle, logo, or message from the stage, the big screen, small screen, internet, radio, newspaper, webinar, billboard, soapbox, Tweet, tradeshow, podcast or e-zine…The point is that one well-placed media appearance or strategic presentation from the platform will likely trump any synergistic lunch meeting with a colleague or Facebook connection with an old flame” (p xxi).
In this book, David Avrin explores and presents wisdom, tactics, and strategies that will help you see your business as your customers do and ask you questions that will help you see your business in a new way. He includes helpful tips from the Visibility Coach throughout to sum up the important points in each section. His book is broken up into 3 main parts, Your Brand, Creating Awareness, and The Pitch to help you go from unknown to well known!
Part I: Your Brand
David Avrin helps us see in this chapter exactly what a brand is, what it can and can’t do, how much influence you have over it, and how to improve it. “Your brand is… Everything. It is everything you do and everything you don’t do” (p 6) and it is more than just your logo and tag line. To build a successful brand you need to make sure you are offering a unique product and experience and that you deliver on your promises to make your business memorable (p 4-5). It will help if you narrow your focus to what you are best at, not just what you can do (p 8-10) and make sure that you do everything you can to gain an advantage and stand out from your competition (p 10). You need to “Stand out, stand apart, and become the clear choice” to get the business and in order to do that, you need to highlight something about your self that is identifiable with you and only you (p 13-17). Tie the senses into how you build your brand, don’t forget the whole experience of your company, product and service (p 61).
Have you looked at your name recently? Is it too general or too clever? “Remember this: If your name requires and explanation, then you’ve just shot yourself in the foot” what you are looking for is a name that gives a sense of who you are and what you offer or says something about you, your audience, your market, what you offer or what you believe (p 20-21). Also look closely at your tag line. It should “tell people what you do, who you do it for, and why you are different from your competition” (p 21).
Make sure your business is the right business: “Step back and look at your business to see if you have struck the balance [between what you want and what your customers want and are willing to pay for] …ensure that you are clear on what your potential customers and clients want. Then deliver that” as the Visibility Coach says “deliver what your customers actually want, and they’ll come back. Do it better than your competition and they’ll come back again and again” (p 29).
There are some other things you can do to keep your brand strong. Make sure your personality comes through when promoting your business, focus and specialize your services/products so that you are the obvious choice, and improve your relationships with others. How do you do that? Be interested instead of interesting, focus on the person you are talking to and let them know you care what they think (p 36-38). Also, don’t work alone. Involve others in your work, products, and ideas and they will help ensure that what you put out in the world is free of errors that you might have missed (p 39-41).
Protect yourself: register the domain names of all versions of your company name so that they can not become the URL of someone seeking to defame your company. Add ‘the’ ’sucks’ and even the ‘F’ word to ensure that their site doesn’t end up higher on the search engine results than yours! Just look at paypalsucks.com! (p 41-43) Nothing is ever lost so make sure that your communications can’t come back and bite you! Review all your written work and make sure it is clean (no typos, nothing profane or that will haunt you later) and remember that even how you dress, act and talk when you don’t think it matters– well, matters (p 43-55). If something happens and you are confronted with a mistake or issue, “Address [them] quickly, honestly, and effectively. Every minute you delay, doubles the amount of time the problem will remain an issue” (p 60).
Presentation is key: know your timezones, they will affect how you do business. Keep your style up to date because “how you dress and who you dress for matters” and make sure you choose the appropriate role for yourself let the professionals do what they do best and if you are the best person to market your brand then do it! (p 60-68)
Part II: Creating Awareness
Fame these days can be attained without much effort- if you don’t care about what you are famous for! To be famous in a way that is good for you and good for your business, David Avrin offers this: “Do good work and good deeds. Treat your friends and clients well. Solve their problems, provide for their needs, and give them good value….then promote the heck out of it!” (p 74) which will make you famous for all the right reasons and keep you that way.
Other ways the author suggests to increase awareness:
- Find the perfect partner to boost your product/service! (p 75-77)
- Be Newsworthy- stand out from the crowd! (p 77-79, 94-97, 131-133)
- Make sure you have an excellent on demand website and that it is on page one of the search engine results! (p 79-83, 159-162, 191-193)
- “Memorable people and brands aren’t boring. Don’t be boring.” (p 83-85, 94-97)
- Reconnect with old friends, colleagues or customers (p 86-88)
- Know how to use social media to your benefit (p 88-91, 105-107)
- Get on TV, get some press and make sure people know about it! (p 92-94, 122-125)
- Free samples will draw people in (p 97-100)
- Join your local Chamber of Commerce, Referral/Leads groups, professional associations! (p 100-103)
- Your visual brand: your look, logo, location, staff uniforms, signage and packaging (p 103-104, 129-131)
- Write a book- get your ideas in print and get it on the news (p 107-114, 115-118)
- Do something to be noticed and remembered (p 114-115)
- Use connections to connect to others, Six Degrees of Business Success (p 118-121)
- Change your voice, mix it up, try things out (p 126-129, 193-196)
- In short: Speak up! Stand out! Step up and be visible! (p 131-136)
Part III: The Pitch
Here are some great ideas from the book on how to get your pitch on track and keep it there:
- Is your brand really promotable? Do you satisfy a want or a need? Are you unique? Do you produce world class services and quality products? Are you highly visible? And look at your target market: What do they watch, read, do and where are they? Where they are you should be too! (p 139-143)
- Don’t use common words: “take your key descriptors or tag line and write them down on a piece of paper without your name or product information. In isolation, do they specifically describe your business or industry or could they apply to anyone in other categories?… Market what truly sets you apart” (p 145-146). Offer something unusual, startling, or unexpected to get the attention you need – even take the risk to go against public opinion (p 147-153) and try to make sure that you are not annoying or intruding by timing and creating your message appropriately (p 154-156).
- Strengthen your marketing by keeping in mind that “the Visibility Coach says: Focus on the big numbers to amplify the need, maximize the problem, and minimize the resistance to your price” (p 159).
- Tie your product or service into an experience for your customer whenever possible. “Most mere items are not truly valued. Experiences by contrast, are felt, given meaning, and ultimately remembered” (p 163-164)
- Don’t grow with your customers if your service or product targets a specific demographic- stick with what you do best! (p 165-166)
- Be original! Don’t go where others have already been (p 169-172) and think of your product in an original way, what else can it do for people? (p 181-183)
- Make people feel good. Then remind those who have used you in the past how much they liked you! (p 173-175)
- Don’t be annoying (p 176-179)
- Make sure you are ready to release your product, do your homework and work out the bugs (p 183-185)
- Share your passion, but appropriately. Don’t spend too much time on you, focus on your product/service or customers (p 189-191)
- Do you research! (Or hire a librarian) and make sure you are prepared to compete! (p 197-198)
And if you think that this list is good, just pick up a copy of the book and read through it. David Avrin does and excellent job walking the reader through step by step how to make changes for the better in how you do business, gain customers, and grow your business and reputation. My favorite part is the Afterword- but you have to read it to understand why!
David Avrin is know internationally as the Visibility Coach and lives right here in Castle Rock, Colorado. A noted speaker, author, branding consultant and executive coach, David shows professionals and organizations how to stand apart and raise their profile in a competitive marketplace. Visit him online at www.visibilitycoach.com.
