How to Stand Out: Creating Your Unique Business Offering
No one will notice your hard work.
Unless you tell them. No one will listen if you’re not speaking to them. We need to be able to communicate our unique offer. What’s the unique value that we’re going to add to those we work with?
This is what good videos do, This is one of the goals of marketing; . It’s not to create ads, trendy social media posts, or viral YouTube videos. It’s to figure out the best ways to be visible to your audience.
To avoid sounding critical of an industry I’m not in, let’s use my business and industry as an example.
I’m a filmmaker; I make videos for businesses. If that’s all I tell people I do, I have no competitive advantage, and there’s no real way to stand out among the rest of the people who own a camera.
A unique offer needs three things:
A Specific Superpower: This could be creating videos with unique concepts, breaking down complicated ideas into simple visual language, or making the viewer feel immersed in a different world.
2. Simplicity: Your offer needs to be easy to remember.
3.Connection with Audience Needs: It should resonate with what your audience is looking for.
Starting Out: Crafting my Unique Offer
This was hard for me to figure out. Sure, people liked working with me. They loved how I was able to tell their story. I knew that I was good at what I do, and people kept coming back for more. But encapsulating my unique offering into something simple was driving me crazy. I do this for lots of clients, so why couldn’t I do it for myself?!
The Moment of Clarity: Finding My Unique Value
I got on a call with a business mentor of mine who works in the same industry. I sent him a handful of my best work and jumped on a call with him. I must have spent 20 minutes talking about what I do. And he said, “Johnathon, you’re making this too complicated. When I look at your work and hear about how you think about your clients, it feels like a documentary. It’s very beautiful; it has a real feeling; there’s always a story, and I get a good sense of what a person is like. I think you should tell your clients that you help them find the right stories to solve their problems.”
I sat there in silence. I was actually a little irritated when I first heard it. I was thinking, damn it, that’s exactly what I do; why couldn’t I see that for myself? That moment only lasted a few seconds, and I was immediately grateful.
The Importance of External Perspectives in Business
My personal takeaway is that it’s sometimes really, really difficult to see what the essence of something is if you’re in the middle of it.
Alright, I use stories to solve problems! Got that in my bag. I’ve always been extremely reliant upon stories for everything. When I was in school to become an R.N., I would actually write pretty absurd stories just to remember a concept.
Adapting and Evolving Your Business Offering
Just because I had my offering down, my unique way that I create videos and value for clients, doesn’t mean that it has to be totally fixed for all of time. I actually recently tweaked it, and I will probably tweak it more in the future.
Identifying a Common Theme in My Work
The tweak came from me taking a few minutes to think about all the work I have done in the last year or so. There was a chef who taught how to eat healthy as a lifestyle, a coach who wanted to improve kids’ mental health through basketball, and a business therapist who focuses on making the workplace more human. When I was able to take a step back, I found a through-line. Each one of them was focused on making people’s lives better. So, I changed up how I talk about myself. Now I say, “I help people who change lives, tell the right stories.”
Overcoming the Awkwardness of a New Business Pitch
To be honest, saying that felt awkward. A little grandiose. But it felt the truest to what my goals and passions are. But there’s only one way to make a thing less awkward, and that’s to actually say it to people. I really believe in the practice of taking the most awkward part of presenting something and getting in reps to:
1. Make changes based on feedback, and
2. Make it feel natural.
Testing and Refining Your Value Proposition
I started by sending off my offer, “I help people who change lives, tell the right stories,” to some trusted friends and colleagues. They loved it and offered up some minor tweaks. So, now I needed to try it out in front of people I didn’t know. So, I looked up a marketing mixer. I told it to every person that I met. And to my surprise, people lit up. It grabbed their attention, and they started talking to me about things they really cared about. They also came away with an understanding of what my unique value “offer” is.
Summary and Key Takeaways
Understanding and communicating your unique value proposition is crucial for standing out in any industry. Here are some key takeaways from my journey:
1. Speak to Your Audience: No one will notice your hard work unless you communicate it effectively.
2. Identify Your Unique Value: Determine what sets you apart and what value you create for your clients.
3. Seek External Perspectives: Sometimes, an outside perspective is necessary to see the essence of your work.
4. Adapt and Evolve: Your value proposition can change over time based on your experiences and reflections.
5. Test Your Pitch: Practice your pitch, get feedback, and refine it until it feels natural and authentic.