Business Owners: You HAVE to Do This

https://jamesarcher.co

I’ve got to tell you about a business train wreck that I recently watched happen. Someone posted a thread asking business owners to check in and say what they do as a way to kind of promote small business and help bring them some visibility. So the responses start coming in and it’s like, I’m a realtor, I sell cookies, I sell stickers, I own a salon, I’m a life coach, I sell digital products, I have an Etsy store, things like that.

It was so hard to watch these business owners one after another say, I’m a blank or I do blank. But none of them gave any specific positioning information that might lead a customer to them. It wasn’t, I’m a realtor specializing in high end homes in the Miami area. Or, or I’m a realtor who helps low income newlyweds find starter homes in the New England area. Or I’m the punk realtor who helps anti establishment types find unique homes.

None of that. They just said, I’m a realtor.

Do you know how many realtors there are in the United States? I’m looking it up. It’s 1. 5 million. There are 1. 5 million realtors in the United States. And when you have the opportunity to promote your business, you just say, I’m a realtor.

And it wasn’t just a few of the business owners in this long thread who responded like that. It wasn’t even the majority of them. It was all of them. Every business owner responded, saying what they do, but giving me no information to know if I should go check out their website, or I should talk to them, or I should buy them.

They gave me nothing. They just said, I’m a realtor, I’m a life coach, I have an Etsy store, I sell stickers. This is the most fundamental stuff that a business owner has to figure out. You have to position yourself in the market. You have to help your target audience solve a real problem with your unique solution.

So when you’re describing yourself, I need to know who your target audience is. So I know if I’m in it. I need to know that you solve a real problem. So if I have that problem, I know I should talk to you and you need to say what makes your solution unique. So I know to talk to you instead of to the other guy, if you’re a business owner, you need to know that stuff off the top of your head and you need to explain it every chance you get.

If you don’t, it’s going to make me sad because I don’t like watching businesses fail. I don’t like watching business owners struggle. If you’re going through all the work of running a business and you’re doing something cool in the world, learn to say what it is and then say it at every opportunity.