Capability Statements are a fantastic way to showcase the credibility, capability and experience of your business without getting into pushy selling. In addition to being useful to include with tenders and expressions of interest, capability statements can be a useful resource for your staff, sub-contractors and colleagues to promote your business in a professional manner.
When promoting our business, it can be easy to get caught up in trying to impress the wrong crowd. Most often, I find that crowd is our competition. It's natural to want to impress our peers, we invest a lot to ensure we are leaders within our industry. But when creating communication for our business, this is definitely not who we should be thinking about.
I have just finished some marketing implementation plans for a few different clients and discovered some serious collaboration between the Queensland and Australian governments. It could mean $24K in your pocket - but it won't be around for long.
I was thrilled to be part of The Business Over Breakfast Show with Andrew Griffiths and Bree James. The podcast is a great source of advice, guidance, tips and insights for small business owners.
On episode 24, I was interviewed as part of their feature on "How to Effectively Market Your Business". Today I would like to issue a challenge.
I would like you to enter your place of business in the same manner a customer would. I would like you to do this once a month! When we arrive at our shop, office, warehouse or where ever it is that our business is located, we often park in the same carpark, arrive via the same roads and enter through the back door. Our experience is often nothing like our customer's experience. Which can be dangerous, it can mean no-one is taking responsibility for ensuring our customer journey is a positive one. We don't celebrate the end of financial year quite the same way we do for the end of the calendar year. Sometimes I wonder why not?
At least I hope you're celebrating. I hope the line in the sand at June 30 represents a positive milestone for your business. I attended the World Business Forum in Sydney in May and June this year (along with 3000 of my closest friends). The 2 day event was packed with sensational speakers, inspiration and motivation and I want to share my top 9 take outs with you.
1. Perception of simplicity. Ken Segall, former Ad Agency Creative Director at Apple, proposes that the perception of simplicity is essential. Our customers can get overwhelmed with too much choice. By making things simple for them, we can make their path to purchase easier and quicker. He argues that being simple isn't simple. It requires discipline and a ruthless approach, especially when it comes to the customer experience. He advises that in business we should do fewer things better. As the man behind the "i" in iMac, I think Ken knows a thing or two about simplicity and making it a commercial success. He challenges us with Einstein's quote: "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough". How can you apply the principle of simplicity to your business? Most business owners I speak with all mention that word of mouth is one of their most impressive sources of business however, most don’t resource customers with anything to make their job easier.
When happy customers want to tell their family, friends and colleagues about you and your business, giving them a helping hand can increase the effectiveness of the recommendation. Hard selling can be difficult and yucky. Persuading someone to buy something they don’t need is just icky – whichever way I look at it. When Dr Flint McGlaughlin, an American academic and business leader used the phrase ‘clarity trumps persuasion’ it certainly resonated with me.
As contemporary business owners, I believe we need to understand that our audience is quite educated. They have a plethora of choice and the internet searching device they are holding in their hands is giving them all the tools they need to carry out extensive searches in a matter of seconds. In response to this, I believe we need to consider moving out of persuading mode and into clarity mode – if we’re not already there. You may call it June 30, end of quarter, end of financial year, half way through 2017, whatever you call it - you are right and we only have 37 more sleeps until we wake up and the calendar ticks over to 30th June 2017. What will you be prioritising between now and then?
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AuthorRoxanne Grey |