It’s like a muscle

Stories sell.

And if you don’t like ‘selling’ try stories instead.

Obviously I am very strong proponent of the adage that people buy from people but it’s true for my business and all the business owners I work with.

Now much as you can ‘create’ a brand around who you are, what really sells you are your stories.

Lifetime value is not a new concept in marketing and business but it often astounds me (in a slap-on-the-forehead kinda way) that many business owners don’t ‘get it’.

Lifetime value is the ‘number’ you need to have in mind when you are evaluating your marketing, when you’re working out your investment into how much to spend (time or money or both) in getting a new customer.

When it comes down to it, there is really only one person who stands between you and your Thing and that’s you.

Of course, you can get help to find your Thing—help to shape it, help to package it, and brand it, and sell it. But only YOU can decide to do it—actually go out there are do the Thing.

It’s about jumping in with both feet to do your Thing and knowing that that’s what you’re here to do. There is no “Ohh, I’ll dip a toe in”—that’s never going to convince anyone… if you’re not 100% certain, then why would anyone buy from you?

I was reminded again at the weekend (I am being Masterminded by Jonathan Jay) how important is it to be unique in business. We were talking about USPs, and why a business owner must know what their USP is before they can market their business with success.

USP stands for Unique Selling Point, or Unique Sales Proposition. I was reminded how hard it is to define these — to really make them totally unique.

It is quite easy to come up with a USP only to realise under scrutiny that it’s not, in fact, unique and could easily be applied to other businesses. So it was good to have the Mastermind group of business owners challenging each other to be unique.

I love the internet.

But that said, my business also has to have a ‘real world’ aspect to it too.

The internet is there to HELP you with your business – to sell for you, to connect for you, to maintain relationships, to find new relationships (business or otherwise!), to share who you are and what you do, to have fun, to reach the places you can’t reach, and more.

It’s not that people don’t want what you’ve got. They might absolutely love your Thing, they just aren’t ready… yet.

This is why you need a wave of marketing… a rolling wave of you showing up, sharing, teaching, guiding, coaching, mentoring, cheerleading, whatever-it-is-your-Thing-looks-like-ing so that when someone IS ready they know where to find you.

I don’t know when you’re going to be ready. I don’t when the person next to you is going to be ready. All I know is that I can be ready. Ready and waiting with open arms ready to find your Thing or get you famous as a business celebrity :)