How to Differentiate Yourself From Your Competitors While Not Sacrificing Profits

From The Desk of Charles J. Kelly

Dear Fellow Business Owner,

People buy from who?

You have probably heard this before, but it is worth repeating…

People buy from those they know, like and trust.

So what if before you asked anyone to buy from you the person already felt like they knew you, liked you and trusted you?

Wouldn’t that make your sales process easier and hence increase your profits?

Of course.

So how do we get our potential customers to know, like and trust us?

Through a process called ‘pre-framing’.

But before explaining in detail what that is let’s establish where we are in our customer’s journey.

Take a look at the diagram below, demonstrating that our customers are on the far left at ‘start’ and want to get them to proceed to ‘finish/sales & profits’.

We have positioned ourselves with what we want potential customers to think about us through our positioning.

So we have established our initial impression with them. 

So There Are Many Activities We Can Perform To Pre-frame Our Potential Customers To Know, Like And Trust Us Before We Ever Ask Them To Make A Purchase.

Those activities are:

  • Advertising: This can be both traditional and social media as well. This matters as what they see in the ad impacts everything they do after clicking the ad.

  • Viral Content: You will see the majority of this on social media apps.

  • Articles: These are written by you that you either post on your own site or are guest posts on other people’s websites. Guest posting on other people’s sites who share a similar audience is a great way to pre-frame potential customers.

  • Interviews: This can be a great way to pre-frame potential buyers whether you are interviewing someone with a similar audience or vice versa you are being interviewed by someone else. You will see a lot of this on podcasts and/or YouTube.

  • Blog Posts: Visitors to your website who browse and read your articles is a great way to pre-frame potential buyers.

All of those activities can be used to pre-frame potential buyers so that they become aware that we exist (know us), our message resonates with them (like us) and feel a sense that we can actually help them (trust us).

What Do We Say When Pre-framing?

Now, while you are pre-framing this is an opportunity to ensure you are attracting your ideal clients while also repelling the potential clients that you do NOT want as clients.

Again, we talked about this in the positioning article.

But in short, you want your messaging to be magnetic to who you absolutely want as clients, but also repellant to people who you definitely do not want as clients.

For example, a headline of an advertisement, article, blog post, etc. you want to call out to who you want as clients and also dissuade those you do not want as clients.

Think about those magazines at the grocery store at the checkout counter where it states, ‘22 ways to get toned for the summer’. Who do you think is buying those?

People who want to get toned and at the same time people who have zero interest in getting toned are NOT buying the magazine. That is not a coincidence. 

Or if I were to use my own business as an example, I attract ambitious people who want to scale their business to their next one million dollars who are optimistic as that is how I feel everyday. 

I have an abundance mentality so I want those types of people as clients, not people who are pessimistic.

Who do you think that is not attracting?

Exactly, people who are slow to take action and those who blame all of their problems on the world as I do not want to deal with those people, life is too short for that.

As you are now likely seeing the big picture, you are able to help your potential customers create a positive image of you, which leads to them feeling like they know you, like you and trust you.

Now, as I’ve previously stated in other materials, this is to be used in an ethical way and to provide a positive experience for your customers.

Please do not mislead anyone.

You now understand how you can help your marketplace know you, like you and trust you before you ever present them with anything to buy.

See how this is vastly different then how your competitors are interacting with their potential buyers?

Your competition is simply throwing advertisement after advertisement asking their marketplace to ‘buy, buy, buy’ and then those competitors wonder why their cost to acquire new customers are skyhigh!

When people feel as if they know us, like us and trust us there is less friction throughout the sales process including when it comes to charging premium fees for our products and services.

Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to ‘convince’ or ‘close’ someone, but instead they willingly pay you your premium fee without hesitation because they trust you and therefore trust your products or services will help them solve their problem(s)?

Yes, that is a great place to be and where your competition is not playing.

This is where you can differentiate your business and realize massive profits!

Now go apply this to your business and let me know if you have any questions.