Everybody says they offer great service...great value...great product!
article by Art Mathews

This is the mantra of most if not all small entrepreneurs that we have spoken with for the past couple of years.  We have asked thousands of small entrepreneurs what makes them different from their competition, especially the larger competitors and the mega corporations that are in their business.   

Without fail they have puffed out their chests and stated with complete confidence that their customers love them, their product and their service.  We asked these same entrepreneurs the following second level questions;

• what exactly make your service better
• how is your product better
• why do your customers love you

Only a small percentage of astute entrepreneurs had a well thought out answer based on some basic market research and business acumen.

No one is disputing that the next couple of years in South Florida are going to be tough and that business is going to be slower this year.  This means that to stay the same size and make the same money as last year you need to own a bigger piece of a shrinking pie!  You will have large and small competitors getting scared and discounting prices, offering more value without charging more or possibly dumping their product or service just to get some money out of their inventory.  Corporate America understands this situation and you will see them begin to consolidate with competitors so they can grow their piece of the pie and cut out un-needed overhead or pull out of the market all together.

This is happening in the financial market as we speak, Merrill Lynch is forcing people out by not offering them bonuses like they have become accustomed to (too bad for these spoiled crybabies), Bank of America is taking over Countrywide, Starbucks is going to close non-performing stores, Washington Mutual has closed their mortgage stores and may be taken over this year by one of the larger wall street firms.

You may be thinking that this is the financial market, however the effect of thousands of people not making money or not having jobs is that many of these people will become consultants, insurance sales people, credit counselors, collectors, franchise owners, retail store owners, restaurant owners, wholesalers, distributors, DJ's, and anything else they feel they can do to make money.  If you are in a business that makes money, you will find a whole new set of competitors entering your market within the next 12-18 months.

What does this mean, it means that you must quantify and qualify your value to your customers and prospects.  I recently spoke to the owners of a variety of businesses, below are my observations and hopefully you can identify with them and change or be happy that you have more defined benefits:

• a computer service business owner stated to a group that he helps small businesses with their technology needs.  He did not have an understanding of document imaging, OCR, VOIP and he was just learning about Vista.  His recommendations showed that this company did not understand the technology that entrepreneurs needed to run and grow their business
• a networking group that was deciding if they should stay together asked what they could do to grow their group.  If they don't know if they are going to stay together then why would anyone join their group.  While discussing if they should stay together they could not come to any agreement on why they only were getting 30% attendance... maybe they offered no real value!
• a web designer that creates sites for small businesses is looking for customers that want an inexpensive, qualify web site for around $1,000.  When we asked what a quality site means, she said it varies, just like what she means by around $1,000.  Oh yea! she said that she just left her corporate job as a marketing executive and that gives her a unique value over her competitors (her and 1,000 other ex-marketing people)

What can you do? 

• Write out why you are better, why your product or service is better, why your customers stay with your company. 
• Once you write it out, take it with you on your next sales call and see if you are saying to others what you feel are your value statements!
• Ask your customers to state your value to them is specific terms
• Make sure your literature is consistent with your value statements
• Ask yourself if these benefits and value statements are enough to keep your business growing or stable during the next two to three years

I would like to hear what your unique selling proposition is.  I would also like to hear about any companies that know their specific value statements, even if it is not your company, just add your comments to this blog.