Many small business owners get wrapped up in what their competitors are doing. Or what they are charging. Or whether or not they are more or less experienced.
Enough already!
With large businesses, people buy a ‘brand’ which is something fairly intangible which they have come to trust over time. There will be full page spreads in newspapers and glossy magazines. The biggest brands will be spending millions on advertising agencies and TV campaigns to reach their specific market.
With being a small business, we don’t have the budget to match them and we are generally working in a local area.
So how does a small business compete?
The answer is easy. Get out there and be seen. Make sure each local small business knows what you do.
One of my Osteobiz superstars has done just that this week. She gathered her courage and went around her High Street and introduced herself. She has an infectious personality, so that they surely won’t easily forget her! And as those seeds are sown with a local small business, they will begin to grow and produce results.
You are magnificent!
Last week I went to my ladies networking event and enjoyed a glass of wine and a mingle. We each have a small business; some make amazing cakes, some offering Pilates to help to rehabilitate and some creating bespoke jewellery.
However, this time was a little different in that the organiser had invited a ‘confidence coach’ to give us a talk. Now he looked a good deal younger than me; he said he was 6′ 5″, an illegal immigrant from Africa and, being pretty confident, I wasn’t sure what he could teach me.
He began by asking us if we thought we were beautiful and a few of us raised our hands – I took it to mean on the inside rather than the outside! Then he asked us if we were magnificent – and only a few raised hands.
Well Richard was not happy with that at all. He said that for a long time he, his brother and his father slept on the floor of a tiny dingy room in South London next to a leaking fridge. He had little to eat and no prospects. His father struggled in a low paid and physically demanding job. He wanted things to change.
Determination will always win out
He phoned a local group about an idea many times but there was no answer. Then one day he turned up at their offices and told them why they needed him on their team to provide some motivational work in schools. The group were aimed at teaching about better self care but no work was being done on self esteem.
When Richard went into the first school hall and asked who thought they were beautiful, not one person put up their hand. We were really shocked to hear this. It seemed like a whole cross section of young people did not think themselves worthy. He went on to say how he talked to them about their magnificence; about how each one was important and valuable. About how beautifully unique each person was and how they must step up and shine.
He spoke with such passion, such conviction and such integrity that I could feel my a fizz in my nose and my tear ducts threaten to lose control.
I had seriously underestimated what a 19 year boy could powerfully convey to a bunch of mostly middle-aged women! And when he asked us about our magnificence again, we all flung our arms into the air!
Lesson learned.
Remember your magnificence is unique!
Recently, I have been followed on social media by herds of digital marketers, SEO experts and the like. They sign up for my free stuff, they sign up to my newsletters and some even buy my online classes! Honestly, I’ve been getting a bit snippy about it! Why are they following me and copying my stuff? Why are they coming to me to see what I’m doing differently? It really started to get to me until I realised something:
They are not me. They cannot inject the passion I feel into my specialist work. Most of all it is interesting that at the point when my business is skyrocketing, others are interested in what I’m doing and how I’m doing it.
You take the science and the philosophy of Osteopathy and then you create art with it.
And in the same way, that will always mean that there is no other person working like you do. Indeed I know highly experienced Osteopaths who will still refer a complex patient to a colleague in order to get the breakthrough that they can’t find.
All this is what makes you unique, magnificent and valuable. So don’t compare your prices to your competitors. Don’t shy away from introducing yourself to your community. It is your own responsibility to promote your small business, unique skill set and abilities to your neighbours. Indeed if you have an arsenal of techniques and methodologies at your disposal, that makes you even more specialist.
So, as a small business owner with a finite amount of time available and as you look towards another year, what is a fair exchange for your talents and magnificence?
