October 14, 2016

How to increase the likelihood of prospects hiring you

There are two things you can do to allay your fears of the Why Conversation:

I’ll tackle the first today, but I’ll flip it around so we’re not forced to deal with a double negative:

“How to increase the likelihood of a prospect hiring you.”

The answer is pretty straightforward:

Specialize!!!

I know that specialization strikes fear in the hearts of many, but specialization - at least in your marketing - is the key to a powerful market position.

You need to become the de facto “go-to guy/gal” for your discipline in your target market. Once you do this, prospects will never be able to do an apples-to-apples comparison between you and your would be competitors. You will be the clear first choice. the only questions in the buyer’s mind will be:

Here are the components that make up a highly differentiated practice:

You don’t need to do all five of these things at once. You can pick and choose which to implement when, although I would urge you to start with positioning because it amplifies the effects of all the others.

Positioning Crash Course

Got a minute? Let’s do a positioning exercise right now...

Grab a pencil and paper and write this down:

I’m a BLANK who helps BLANK with BLANK. Unlike my competitors, BLANK.

Now, fill in the blanks to create your laser focused positioning statement.

Did you try it? Seriously... take out a piece of paper and fill in the blanks.

Seriously.

Paper.

Do it.

If you’re having trouble, don’t feel bad - almost everyone does. It’s brutal. I’ve had people actually start crying during this exercise.

If you didn’t have trouble with this exercise, you probably wrote something soggy like:

“I’m a UX professional who helps businesses with elegant solutions to complex problems. Unlike my competitors, I have 10+ years of experience adding value by building high quality software.”

This is not a laser focused positioning statement; it’s just clever wordsmithing that encompasses your vision of yourself, to yourself; it doesn’t communicate any value to anyone.

Here are a few good examples to get you started:

See the pattern?

I’m a DISCIPLINE who helps TARGET MARKET with EXPENSIVE PROBLEM. Unlike my competitors, UNIQUE DIFFERENCE.

Nailing your laser focused positioning statement is the single best thing you can do to grow your business. It’s the foundation of everything. Without a laser focused positioning statement, you’re wasting your time with marketing efforts like advertising, outreach, blogging, vlogging, podcasting, social media, webinars, etc.

Do you have doubts or questions about specializing? Please hit reply and let me know!

Yours,

—J

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