Do I Need You? Wow, Yes!

So you want to grow your business in 2009? This is the second in a sometimes-series at Maximum Customer Experience called Building Your Business. Read part one for a look at where you are right now: Building Your Business With a Map.

You’re committed to creating a better Customer Experience, because you know that your customers will be more loyal, buy more from you, and spread fantastic word-of-mouth about your company if their Experience with your company makes you one in a million.

Can you sell me in a sentence—or hook me so well I have to read the next one?

How about in a paragraph?

What if I give you three pages to get me drooling to hand you my money?

I’m a fan of full-fledged business plans—they force you to concentrate on the details that will ultimately determine the success of a great concept.

But let me tell you, if you think I’ll wade through a 45-page business plan hoping your idea will sink in eventually, you are crazy.

If you think I’ll listen to a half-hour pitch before knowing we’ll never do business you are similarly deranged.

First impressions count—and today I’m not talking about your attire or the look of your space.

I’m talking about your concept.

What the heck do you do and why would anyone give you money for it?

You’ve got one sentence to get me to care and a paragraph, max, to get me to want to do business with you—or to know someone who should. The rest of your plan is for you.

It doesn’t need to be hard-sell, folks. It needs to be clear. Eye-opening. And a dash of Wow, I NEED THAT—how come I never knew it before?

This isn’t just for new businesses. You can probably think of examples in your own town—businesses that have been around for a while, you see their ads in the local paper, you’ve driven by a million times, but you have no idea of what they do. Not having a tight, compelling concept is like throwing your time and money out the window. No matter what stage your business is at, you’ll spend time explaining yourself that should be spent solving customers’ problems, and money advertising to generate excitement that should be spreading by word-of-mouth.

If you don’t know how to get that for your plan, your website’s home page, and your elevator pitch, then you’ve got to work with someone who can help you find the Wow!

Or you’ve got to stop throwing your money out the window at your foggy dreams.

 

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

P.S. If you’d like help getting your concept to Wow!, email me. I know it’s time for your business to grow in 2009!

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