Improve areas of your business
By Peter Switzer

Good businesses targeted to become great businesses must continuously work on lifting their game. Here are areas to focus on.

1. Your unique value proposition (UVP)
Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is something that sets you apart. It makes you a purple cow standing out among boring brown cows.

Experts on the subject say the mistake most companies make is they look inward for their UVP, instead of outward.

A UVP should be based on what your clients value and that’s why you have to research your existing customers and the customers you don’t have – it’s always wise to presume nothing.

Business speaker and marketing expert Martin Grunstein has a bottom line lesson that says your advertising has to start with: ‘Why should I buy from you?’

Your UVP should be small enough to fit onto a napkin or be delivered to a stranger in a lift who might ask you that very question – the famous elevator pitch.

Here are some questions to start making a great UVP:

• Does it solve customers’ needs?
• Do you really know your customers?
• Do you know your rivals’ offerings?
• Have you one sentence why customers should buy from you?
• Is it unique?
• Is it simple to get?
• Does it say what you do and what you are?

2. Your marketing
Marketing 101 should be the thickest book of all time, but the fundamental force in your marketing is your UVP. Targeting your UVP to your best audience is critical.

Also, make sure you’re easy to buy from as this can frustrate a partially successful marketing campaign.

Marketing-wise, it pays to think strategically about your customers and outside the square. Know what you’re selling. Charles Revson, the founder of Revlon taught me a lot about marketing when he said: “In our factories we make cosmetics; in our stores we sell hope.”

Never forget that inextricably linked to this kind of thought process is that famous catchcry ‘thinking outside the square’. This is at the core of great innovative products and marketing campaigns.

Try different forms of advertising – direct, radio, newspapers, etc. – and even public relations to find out what best works for your business. Ask your customers to refer you to friends and family if they think you have given great service.

Remember to market for the long-term. Regular contact is a superb way to be remembered over time.

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