Thursday, December 3, 2009

Don't Be Herd

If you want people to listen, don’t be ‘herd’.

When you look and sound like all the other animals, nobody pays attention. But become the ugly duckling, or the tenor sax in the string quartet, now people sit up and take notice.

If you’re part of the herd, you won’t be seen. When you look like everyone else, you become the wallpaper, not the icon.

In many fields, there’s an accepted way of communicating with your clientele. A fast-food restaurant doesn’t talk like an insurance company. That’s great, since you don’t want to hear about your homeowner’s insurance in terms of 99 cent specials.

But what do you do when you (and thirteen other guys in town) are selling furniture, and everybody talks about quality and service and free delivery? You’re in the herd. And you’re not being heard.

Now’s the time to find your own voice, to uncover the qualities that make you ‘you-nique’. Not a cookie cutter sound from Marketing 101. Not ‘louder is better’. What makes you different?

If you've not yet discovered what’s unique about your enterprise, get busy. If there’s nothing distinctive about you and your business, if you have no personality, get busier. Or settle for being part of the herd.

Cuz you ain’t bein’ heard.
.

1 comment:

Scout said...

Good advice. And there are quite a few furniture places around here. I think of them all differently, though.