Getting Attention Isn’t About You

As small businesses, we spend a lot of time focusing on getting consumers to buy from us. Common sense tells us the first thing to do is  to get their attention.

So, you do that:

• You try to impress them with your credentials.
• You try to tempt them with your products.
• You try to grab their attention with special offers.
• You spiff up your displays
• You send out emails.  You may even spend big bucks on marketing campaigns.
• You take ads in  local newspapers.

“Here I am.  Come buy.”

You do everything the marketers tell you to do (at great expense), to attract an audience, but your message falls on deaf ears.  You’ve spend a bundle, yet you don’t get the attention – or the dollars – you believe you deserve.

Not what you intended, but nonetheless, that was the outcome.

So many businesses tell me they used the right tools, or the tools they were told to use by the so-called gurus.  But I’ll tell you something.

You can use the best tools in the world, but unless your message resonates in the context of the consumer’s mind, your efforts are meaningless.

Tools don’t provide meaning.  People do.  Your words do.  Make them count.

You see, your customers don’t care about you. They care about themselves.

Shift your thinking from ‘you’ to ‘them.’

Tell them what they want to hear.

Rather than spending precious time and money telling people how good you are,  focus on understanding who your audience consists of, and what you could do that would spark their interest. What need can you fill? What problem can you solve?  What value can you provide that others don’t?

Our businesses are not about us. They’re about them.

Our value doesn’t consist of financial profits, but about how others profit by doing business with us.

When we create value for others, our value to them increases.

Our profit will take care of itself.