Starting a new business is not easy, most people don’t even try it. So just trying is a huge deal.
The information that I’m about to share is something I consider GOLD. Throughout my years of experience, I’ve seen many businesses, entrepreneurs, and brands, with so much potential, that are struggling to sell a product that is, honestly, awesome, and no one even knows about it or are willing to try it.
If you have a great concept, a great product, a unique and extremely helpful service that no one is aware of, or people are not buying it, you probably need to read the following information.
Here’s a question you’ve probably made yourself: How is it that an extremely expensive purse company that does nothing else than to print its logo on their so-easily-manufactured product gets people to make huge waiting-lines on Paris’s most famous and expensive street while beautiful designs with incredible quality leather-wallets don’t even get noticed?
I honestly think every business and person has a special quality and mission in this world, and no brand is like any other, but as long as you don’t communicate this to people, YOU WON’T GET NOTICED. A truly efficient Marketing Strategy makes sure every target customer gets and understands this unique value, and any successful business makes the best out of this unique value by creating more of it and by exponentiating to its full potential. This is the great secret to create a successful business or brand.
If we achieve this, we will be delivering true-value to this world, for as little or insignificant as it might seem, it could transform a person’s moment, day or even life, and that is taking your idea to its true potential.
Today I will try to sum a lot of my knowledge into three key points for you to learn and save you tons of time of study, work and trial-and-error practices. Start putting them into practice as soon as you read it, no matter what your product, business or industry is, they apply to any and they WILL IMPROVE YOUR SALES.
And here I have to say, becoming an expert is not becoming the person who knows about it more than anyone in the whole world, just be ABOVE 80% of what common people know, which can be easier than you think, and here’s why:
If you’re not familiar with Pareto’s Law, it is a law (created by someone named Pareto, obviously, at the beginning of the 20th century) in which it is stated that 80% of mostly anything comes from 20% of the effort, or the people, or the work, or whatever it might apply to. So, for instance, let’s say you’ve just started exercising after a lifetime of practically not doing anything. 80% of the improvement you show next year will have been for 20% of what you did, so, during the first 73 days, you’ll show more improvement than you will for the rest of the year. Or, the study which started all of this movement, 80% of the economy is owned by 20% of the people. The list goes on, I have discovered it to apply to practically anything. Try it yourself.
Anyway, considering this, 20% of the world’s knowledge of your product/business and market, will give you that 80% mark that will make you stand out good enough to start your business and become the best at it.
So start by looking for the most important 20% of knowledge and soon you’ll feel like you’ve been in the field for years, and you’ll be able to maintain a conversation that is considered to be an expert’s conversation. You’ll know more about your market than most of the people you’ve met and you’ll know, and, more importantly, you’ll know what they want and what they need from you.
A few things to consider when getting your knowledge about your market:
Now that you know so much about your business and about its reach and possibilities, you’re probably excited about launching it or selling it. But there’s a very important next step before that happens:
If anything, any business or product is created to solve a specific or general problem, and, ideally, better than anyone else, or, at least, differently. So our main focus now has to be in getting to know EVERYTHING we possibly can about that problem. The more you know about it, the better solution you’ll be able to provide.
If there’s no problem, no solution is important or even relevant. For people to need something, they first need to have a problem/need. Secondly, recognize that they have that problem (or at least feel it unconsciously). Lastly, look and buy or create a solution to that problem. Your business should be either providing that solution or providing ways to that solution. It should make their life easy and possible.
Some problems are not as evident as others, this is where an emotional product comes to life. Meaning that a product that creates an emotion that addresses that problem or lack. Sometimes we believe this is unethical, and to some extent and for some products and businesses it is, but it is still a human need that many times needs to be fulfilled and it is not always a disloyal thing to do. It is part of being human and living this game of life.
For instance, needing a bigger, prettier, more luxurious house is nothing more than a superficial need because we don’t really NEED more than a roof over our heads, but there’s still this human need of “belonging” to a social group, or “significance” which makes us want to stand out from the crowd, or the “security” need of wanting to have more just-in-case we ever need the extra space/money/etc. So there is no physical need or problem to be solved, it is an emotional problem.
So in case your business or products fall into this “emotional-problem” category, then, most probably, you will need to communicate the benefits in an emotional way. This means you’ll have to adorn it more with emotional substances such as:
It becomes a more abstract brand, where everything is felt.
On the other hand, if you’re solving a very physical need, you’ll need to give more facts about it, be more direct about its features and give all detail about what you’re delivering. Your communication should be primary things such as:
But even then, you’ll have to set a special emotion that is related to the product and the market, that communicates all of this facts in every way. So, let’s say you’re selling something that is bigger than any of the competition, create an atmosphere on the brand that reflects this. For instance, your typography selection should be bold, big and strong. This creates an unconscious awareness that your brand is bolder, bigger and stronger than others. This should be applied all across your brand and concept. Of course, this is a very utopian product, since almost no product has only ONE quality, but if it does, it should be like that.
This is how you truly find your Unique Value Proposition (UVP) which is that unique quality that makes your product/services/business stand out.
Lastly, when you decide who you’re serving, what you’re solving, how you’re solving, you will have a very interesting, unique and potentially successful product. So once you have this figured out, you’ll need to start selling it, and getting people to know it and improve it every single day, until you’ve reached that point where you feel like it flows by itself, that people look for it, that people love using it, now comes the next step, the step that will make your company grow to its full potential and become unstoppable:
This is the part where many considerably successful business stop, conform to what it generates and get stuck. This is the one step that will make you incredibly successful, and, not only that, it is the step that will give you the option to keep working or retire if you wish. When you create a system, you create a business that works by itself, it’s just a matter of replication. Sometimes you’ll need to be working on getting funds more than in the business itself when you get to this point.
A system can be created when you organize your business in such a way that anyone can step in and understand it and make it work.
When creating a system, there are a few things you’ll need to accomplish in order for it to work as a real system:
Once you have this, you have a great business. Make sure everyone knows about it by creating a great Marketing Strategy.
Starting and creating a business is so much more than just getting a good idea, it has many factors that will make sure your business is successful and well-known. Start analyzing whether your business model has all this factors covered and make sure you come back to these periodically. If you follow this guide I can assure your business does better than 80% of startups.