Value Proposition, Positioning Statement, Elevator Pitch? Know the Difference?
When you’re trying to sell something, you want to have answers ready for any question that may come up. It’s an impossible – but good – goal to have because if you take it seriously, it forces you to understand what you are selling and who you are selling to. Further, whether you’re selling a new client on your product or service, or an angel investor on your startup, there will be times when you need to have a complete grasp of your value proposition(s) and positioning statement(s) so you can craft a good elevator pitch. And with that said, let me ask you: Do you understand the difference between your positioning statement and your value proposition? Let’s look at each in a little more detail. Value proposition. This is simply the value you bring to your customer or client. It’s the solution you’re providing to the problem your customer is experiencing or the way your product or service increases profits or saves money. Ask yourself how is your customer better off after having purchased your product or service. If it’s unclear to you how you improve the world for your customers, it will be even more unclear to your prospects. Positioning statement. Unless you’re Thomas Edison, there’s a good chance that others are providing a similar if not exactly the same – product or service. Your positioning statement should define your place in the market. For example, both Ace Hardware and Home Depot sell hammers, yet they have different strengths that they use to appeal to their customers. They are positioned differently within the market for hammers. You need to understand your competition and what niche you’ll occupy within the market for your product or service. If you can’t do this, you won’t know which customers to target, where to advertise, how to price your product, what level of support you need to provide, etc. Elevator pitch. This is often a short “best of” presentation that takes the best of your value proposition and combines it with the best of your positioning statement. But above all, it is crafted for your target audience. Your value proposition and positioning statements won’t change – unless your business pivots – but your elevator pitch may change for every person you present it to. Can you identify all of these elements in your company and among your products and services and fit them into their proper categories? When you have full command of your value proposition and positioning statements, you’re ready to be in control. Further, as you understand them better you will discover where they are weak and you’ll be able to make improvements that strengthen your company and allow you to gain market...
read moreMy Quest: How to Find Out Who Is Muting You on Twitter
I’ve written once before about the Twitter mute feature. It allows a Twitter user to omit someone’s tweets from the home feed. Of course, if you’re tweeting to build your brand and do some social media marketing, you don’t want your followers muting you. That’s why you need to keep the content you post relevant and engaging. Once people understand what the Twitter mute feature does, often the next question is: How can I tell if someone is muting me on Twitter? My short answer to that short question is to tell you that there’s no sure way to tell. Twitter created the mute feature to let you essentially unfollow someone without making you go through a public divorce and eventually get unfollowed in return. I’ve read about possible ways to discover the people muting you and I’ve tested most of them. They don’t work. You see, even when someone has muted you, they still see any tweet you send that includes their Twitter handle. Also, if you send a direct message that says, “Hey, have you muted me?” The person will see it and can simply say no. Therefore, the only kind-of-sort-of possible way to find out is to use their real name in a tweet, repeat the tweet at various times, and see if you get a response. You might tweet something like, “John Doe wrote an excellent blog at www.blog.com. Check it out!” and see if John Doe acknowledges the mention. (I think you can come up with a more “response commanding” tweet than my example.) If you have found a way to discover who’s muting your tweets, share it with our readers in the comments section. Also, do you have any other cool Twitter tricks up your...
read moreHow To Handle Changes Caused by the Court’s Gay Marriage Decision
Does the Supreme Court know all the paperwork it creates when it hands down some of its decisions? That’s one of the upshots of the recent ruling that made gay marriage legal in every state. To put it simply, if you have a gay employee who will now be recognized as married in your state, every form that employee has filled out that has a check box for “married or single” needs to be reviewed and probably updated. In some cases, there will be financial implications. As a small business owner, you probably have a pretty good idea if any of your employees fall into this category. After you’ve done a little research, it would be a good idea to meet with your gay married employees to discuss some of the changes you need to make to be sure everyone is on the same page. Let’s look at some examples. Payroll. There’s a very good chance that the taxes – especially state income taxes – withheld for newly-legalized gay married employees will change. If the calculations have been done assuming a single status, it may need to be adjusted. Let your employees know the impact a change in marital status would make, if any. They may decide to request a specific amount for income tax withholding purposes. Benefits. If you offer benefits to employee spouses, you’ll need to include this new group. If you work with insurance brokers or agents on these items, meet with them to make sure you fully understand the situation and your options. When you sit down with your employees, you want to be sure that you really understand the situation and present them with the facts and correct options. This is probably the area where small business owners are going to spend the most time trying to get a handle on the changes. 401(k) programs, as well as health insurance, life insurance, and family leave benefits will all be impacted by the Supreme Court ruling. Legacy offerings. Has your business offered “domestic partner” benefits? That category may change. With equal access to marital benefits, some businesses may no longer see a reason to deal with domestic partnerships. Gay-owned businesses. If you, as a small business owner, are in one of the marriages that is now recognized in every state, your business can be classified as “family owned.” This may have implications if one spouse die, even if the business wasn’t jointly owned before the Supreme Court ruling. Straight couples often work out prenuptial agreements to take care of these complications before they’re standing at the altar. I think it’s safe to say that many gay couples didn’t bother with “pre-nups” because they knew that their home state wouldn’t recognize their marriage anyway. Dissenters. Just like the Supreme Court decision had dissenters, there are small business owners who will resist aspects of the ruling. At some point, I suspect the Supreme Court will need to rule on which right trumps the other – religious freedom or freedom to wed. A Christian-owned family bakery in Oregon is facing a fine of $135,000 for its refusal to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple and their owners’ public discussion of the issue. While this type of situation will likely be rare, we will undoubtedly hear about...
read moreThis Week in Small Business: Executive Extinction, Instagram and Hacking Your Way to Success
We look to the future of the C-Suite in this week’s roundup of the top business articles posted on the Internet. But we also have our eyes on the present with plenty of marketing and tax tips you can use in your small business today. Entrepreneurship, startups and innovation Will CIOs, CMOs and CFOs go the way of the dinosaurs? These 10 C-Suite positions may be in your future. Author Laura Vanderkam thinks podcasting is the new networking. Holding down a day job while launching your next career move may be challenging, but keeping the paycheck and leveraging your work contacts may turn your side-project dream into a full-time success. The answer: Growth hack it! Leadership, management and productivity Good managers, like good chess players, are always thinking a few moves ahead. This article lists five solid small business strategies for the fall. Does your business have a personality? It can really help you connect with your ideal customers and clients. Conflict is inevitable; it’s just a part of doing business…and living. Here are four conflict resolution tips for the small business owner. I think your productivity is directly linked to your level of fitness. Here’s a rundown of high-tech standing desks that will help improve both. Do you love meetings or hate them? Here are eight effective meetings for agile marketing teams. A Chief Customer Officer needs to be that unique person who can understand data and relate to people on a human level, says expert Shep Hyken. It’s never our favorite subject, but small business owners need to stay ahead in the tax game. Barbara Weltman gives you four things to do this month regarding your taxes. Picture perfect credit isn’t always required for a small business loan, according to Nerd Wallet’s Benjamin Pimentel. Marketing and sales Top performing B2B reps are endlessly finding ways to improve their performance. Eliminate these seven deadly sins if you want to join that elite group. A good ranking on Google can make you gold. Here are three quick ways to position yourself above your competition. Are your content marketing efforts taking advantage of other people’s audiences. Here are three opportunities you may be missing. Shhh! Don’t let your competitors in on these three crucial secrets of social media marketing. Beep! Leave your message at the tone! NOT! How to connect with people who are difficult to get a hold of. John Rampton gives us 12 tips to turn free trial customers into paying customers in this article he wrote for Intuit QuickBooks. Rampton had another good piece where he shares marketing tips from successful CEOs. Jim Joseph, chief integrated marketing officer and president of the Americas for New York-based communications agency Cohn & Wolfe, discusses what he believes to be the single most important marketing strategy. You don’t have to be Leonardo Da Vinci to create beautiful posts on Instagram. Just follow these 10 tips to get the job done. With more than 364 million registered users in roughly 200 countries, LinkedIn is a powerful and active social media network. Here are five ways to use it for content marketing. Politics, government and the economy It seems like all levels of government are trying to find ways to squeeze tax revenue out of the Internet. Chicago imposed a “cloud tax”...
read moreSmall Business Owners: Keeping the American Dream Alive
Sometimes small business owners can feel besieged. Big businesses have advertising and marketing budgets that dwarf their total yearly receipts. The corporate honchos and their high-salaried lobbyists have the ear of our lawmakers. Politicians only seem to care about small businesses during election cycles. But despite swimming upstream against these insanely strong currents, small business owners remain an upbeat and optimistic bunch, and a recent study by OnDeck captures these great qualities. Here’s what they say in their quarterly Main Street Pulse Report. Living the American Dream. 81 percent of those surveyed by OnDeck reported that they left a 9-to-5 corporate gig to start and build their own businesses. They kicked the corporate habit for three basic reasons: More money, Greater flexibility, and Ability to pursue their passions. Some small business owners may assume that there’s more money to be made by climbing up the corporate leadership ladder. I think that those who leave the corporate world to join the entrepreneurship crowd understand that real money comes with ownership. If they create a good company, they are creating value far beyond what they are able to take out in terms of a monthly salary. When they sell at retirement or after they have their startup pointed in the right direction, the payout can be significant. Getting ’er done. It’s tempting to think that the American work ethic is an endangered species. This study proves that it’s alive and well among small business owners. More than two-thirds work over 50 hours a week. Nine out of 10 put in time on weekends and 80 percent aren’t finished with work when they leave the office. Are small business owners workaholics? Yes, sometimes. But when you’re pursuing a passion and know the value you’re creating, it’s not the same as feeling you’re merely a cog in a big, impersonal corporate wheel. By the way, small business owners work this hard because their top priority is to grow their businesses. Further, eight out of 10 small business owners are committed to helping their communities. This shows that they are “connected” and that’s something humans need to experience true happiness and fulfillment. Let me put it this way: small business ownership is personal. The money follows. I’ve touched on the fact that small business owners are creating value and that’s reflected in the survey. Some 65 percent say that they are in a better financial situation than if they were working for someone else. They say that the hard work and sacrifices are worth it and they have no regrets. And while we know that a good number of Americans believe that their work-life balance is out of whack, at least half of all small business owners say they’re doing just fine in that department. We get a lot of bad news, it’s nice to see that the qualities that made The United States great are still alive and healthy among small business owners. Small business owners know something that the rest of the country needs to learn: You can shape your own future if you have a dream and are willing to work hard enough to make it a reality. Image: By Kenny Louie from Vancouver, Canada: Hard at work. Uploaded by russavia. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia...
read more