Failing to Launch: Lessons on Positioning and why Value creates Assets
Every entrepreneur who ever dreams of establishing a business or being successful have their own unique reasons.
Perhaps their reason is to free up more of their schedule in order to enjoy the time with family and be there with their kids. Or, it may be that they wish to dominate their niche.
Whatever the reason, creating a successful business always requires some extra edge, especially nowadays.
If you're in business, congratulations! You've officially been admitted into the school of hard knocks. Of course, some of you already know that, the hard way.
Entrepreneurship was never supposed to be easy. It's not meant for the faint of heart, and definitely not meant for those who think that success will come to them without any effort.
Whether your main market is to target investors in real estate or to sell a product on the internet, the rules are practically the same. You have to analyze your market.
Preparation is key to establishing a solid foundation for your business. No one wants to think of failure, so by preparing, you'll be doing yourself a huge favor.
What's missing out there? What are your most successful competitors doing? How are your customers reacting? Are you studying their pain points? Are your solutions and product design concepts revolving around value-based growth or simply profit maximization?
Whatever you plan to do, never ignore the market and study the gaps that you may potentially fill.
Yes, profit matters, but not as much as the value you provide. Profits can only last for so long, whereas value is everlasting and it has a greater impact long-term.
This goes without saying that you need to really learn on how to craft the perfect positioning statement for your business. Your brand needs to grab the right attention, depending on what you're offering to your target market.
Competition is good, but not if they're stepping over your territory. This is the biggest reason why you absolutely need to create value that others can't provide.
Your competitors should be at their feet because of the way you do business and how powerful your brand is. You need to reverse engineer the traits of dominant market players and take those lessons in order to apply it to your business.
If you want to be great, mediocre is not going to cut it. You have to hustle and work much harder knowing in the back of your mind that there are competitors out there who are out to get your potential revenue share.
Get educated and consistently be out there letting your potential customers know that you care for them by demonstrating your expertise on different knowledge sharing platforms.
Create a great brand by offering value first and let your customers build that relationship through trust. Trust will, in turn, convert to revenues down the road. Don't be too quick to jump the gun.
No matter how big you plan on getting, keep in mind that your customers are the ones that will get you there.
Learn to nurture their needs, listen to their criticism and be open to constructive feedback.
Don't be angry at them for pointing out your mistakes, acknowledge them, thank your customers and move on to creating a better company than that prior to the mistake being pointed out in the first place.
The end result is that you will not only have demonstrated to your customers that you care, but it also enables you to build a great brand around a solution based culture.
You can't price great value. Great value is in a league of its own. It translates to sales and ultimately leads to phenomenal growth. If you care about your customers enough where the value exceeds expectations, you will win. No questions asked.
In Conclusion
Take your time and audit where you stand. Even if it means dissecting your business from the ground up. The most important thing you can do to help your business is by learning on where you can add value to your customers. Care enough for them and your business will flourish for the years to come.