It may be time for you to reexamine who you are, what you stand for, and how you communicate what it is that is YOU.  Your “brand,” if you wish to use that term, needs to be distinctive.  If it’s not you need to make some changes. 

Take a look at your business from the customer’s point of view and honestly assess if you are the clear choice among your competition.  What is so different about your company that it becomes the clear choice to select your firm to deliver the needed services?  Taking this step is harder than it sounds.

We are all so close to our businesses that we become blind to the obvious weaknesses our prospects see so clearly.  And, without clear vision it is hard to make the necessary changes to improve. 

One accounting firm, although highly competent, was so out-of-focus to why their business was not growing that they hired my firm to conduct a research study with their customers to get an objective assessment of how they were viewed.  The findings were startling.  The customers did not see the firm as a provider of a wide array of top-notch services but, rather, a very solid company that only provided a single service – the one the customers were using.  This resulted in a loss of not only income opportunities but, also, the increased loyalty that would have come from clients using more than one of their services.  In fact, some of their customers mentioned that they used services offered by my client’s competitors.

This lack of awareness of company offerings is sometimes created by our clients putting us in a stereotypical box.  They see us as two-dimensional rather than being a multifaceted solution provider. 

Once you can identify that your firm is not standing out in the minds of your prospects, and especially your customers, you need to act.  You need to differentiate from the crowd in much the way products do on the store shelves.  You want to position your firm in distinctive, but appropriate, ways to be noticed, remembered, and selected.

Some issues you need to address are the frequency of communications with your customers:

• How often do they hear from you?  
• How many different media do you use to deliver your message? 
• How distinctive and memorable is your message? 

If you need to improve your messaging it is advisable to go outside of your organization to get a fresh perspective.  There are many excellent creative writers that can make that happen. 

Next, collect all the information you can from your competitors and post it on the wall along side your materials.  Do your materials stand out visually: color, size, layout, etc.?  What do your materials say that makes you stand out from the others?  What alternative media are you using to cut through the common clutter that your prospects receive. 

Be distinctively different in the way your firm interacts with the prospects as well – from the look of your offices, to the way you greet people on the phone.  The way emails are sent and your approach to sending birthday greetings, etc. all are little ways to make a big distinctive difference for your firm and stand out from the boring competitive clutter your competitors are sending.

Being distinctively different does not mean being bizarre but being more in-line with the creative aspects of your customers’ needs.  The accounting firm in the above example was able to reorient their communications approach so that not only did they standout from the traditional looking competition but also added a distinctive professional personality to their communications.  It has made a significant difference.