How your business can stand out in crowded market

Are you competing in a crowded market?

One of the biggest reasons why a business fails to stand out is the lack of differentiation in the marketplace. As Seth Godin says, “in a crowded marketplace fitting in is failing, in the busy marketplace not standing out is the same as being invisible.” The problem with fitting in is that being average in a crowded marketplace is the mark of a dying company. The world doesn’t need another company doing the same thing in the same way. It needs creativity, insight, and inspiration. The game has indeed changed where being remarkable is the new reliable. It’s being replaced by a customised approach, tailored to each buyer’s requirement to succeed and thrive in today’s hyper-competitive world of marketing.

Be different

Being different is fun and exciting. The problem is that when it comes to truly differentiating your business from your competitors, there are two common traps that new businesses fall into too easily. More often than not, many businesses’ unique selling propositions or key points of differentiation are not unique at all. This results in the same, standard, bland selling point that does little to encourage customer action and even less to set apart the business from their competitors. This is called deficient and defective differentiation.

Deficient differentiation can be the result of fear, resistance, a change, or uncertainty in a business’s true value to its customers. Defective differentiation is being different, but in a way that does not matter to your customers. The key here lies in identifying what factors, traits or benefits your target market actually wants and shifting your efforts in that direction.

Here are a few tips on how you can be different in ways that would matter to your customers.

Provide excellent customer service

If you want your customers to find you and talk about you, you HAVE to stand out and be different. If you can’t do it through your product because you’re selling the same thing as everybody else, then you can do it by providing exceptional service. Make people remember you by making them feel welcome and like they matter.

Your customers are your biggest driving factor. They determine whether your business thrives or not, which is why customer service is of utmost importance. Go the extra mile to take care of your customers because it takes a lot of effort for a customer to trust your business. A good review from one customer can generate a few more sales for you, whereas one bad review can ruin the reputation of the business that you took years to build.

If you provide good customer service, people will be more inclined to come to you again when they need something, instead of going to your competitors. Besides, it is more expensive to acquire a new customer versus retaining existing or regular customers. This is why keeping your customers happy is the right thing to do.

Hire the right people

Hiring the right people for your organisation will go a long way towards helping your business stand out. Look out for employees that can bring long-term gains to your company, or have the potential to grow your business with creative solutions to help your business stand out, which will then give you a competitive edge against your competitors. This will ensure sustainable growth for your business.

“Sustaining growth requires you to share your momentum with others. It demands that you have the best interests of others in your team, and colleagues throughout the organization, at heart. Driving sustainable growth can never happen alone. It not only demands a strong team, but also collaborative departments/business units that work together to make up a strong ecosystem with the right intellectual capital.” – Glenn Llopis.

Embrace change

To ensure your business stands out, it is important that you keep up with the times and take the right steps and use the right strategies to continually improve and do better. When a business stays complacent or too comfortable, its competitors may very likely win the race.

It is important to keep up with today’s fast-paced technology and know the latest trends among customers in order to market your business where your audiences are. Selling your products online is a good way to increase the visibility of your products. Build an e-commerce store or list your products in a well-known marketplace so that it will be more convenient for your audience to buy from you.

One of the best ways to realise these strategies is to take out a loan, which can do wonders for your business in terms of expansion and improvement. Yes, there are other ways to get funding besides applying for a loan, like perhaps through an angel investor or a venture capital fund. However, these sources would usually want equity in the business before supplying funds to the business owner. The dilution in equity may result in conflicting growth strategies that may relieve the business owner of majority control in the direction of expansion they would like to steer their business in. In contrast, a loan offers a source of funding where business owners will not have to give up any equity in the business in exchange, ensuring that they retain control over creative strategies and business decisions (bearing the condition that the business owner repays the loan efficiently).

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