How to stand out from the crowd

One of the best ways to get your business noticed in a crowded market place is to make your business ‘’famous’’ in some way. Here are four examples to get you thinking.

Example 1: The master of fine woodwork

(This business got well known for doing one thing really well.)

I heard about this business from my marketing colleague in the United States, Christine Clifford.

Christine’s brother is a carpenter in Montana.

A few years ago when the economy was booming, he was busy working on multi-million dollar houses.

When the housing market in the United States came to a screeching halt, so did his building work.

Christine went to visit her brother and they drove around his community looking at these houses that he had helped to work on.

Christine quickly realised that her brother was lovingly pointing out the woodwork that he had done on these homes: shutters, decks, stair rails.

Then he was talking about how on the inside of each home, his speciality was hardwood floors and internal pieces of fine woodwork.

So she said to him: ‘‘You know, Greg, what you really are, is you are a master of fine woodwork. You’ve been positioning yourself out there as a carpenter, and they are a dime a dozen. So let’s go home and create a simple one-page flyer for you that just says, ‘Greg, master of fine woodwork’ and see what happens’’’.

Well, you can guess what happened. People started calling up her brother to come and do the woodwork in their home.

He was putting his resources – his time, his money, and his people – into getting the message out there that he was a ‘master of fine woodwork.’

What happened to Christine’s brother is his business became so successful; he had to hire people to work for him.

He became famous as a master of fine woodwork.

Example 2: The instant Facebook page to website service

(This business offers an unusual service.) There is an excellent website and digital marketing firm in Blenheim, New Zealand called iBeFound Digital Marketing.

They have a service I’ve never heard of before that turns a Facebook business page into an instant website.

IBeFound gives businesses a 14-day, no-cost trial to see what they think about the service.

Example 3: The world’s most expensive strawberries

I watched a short four-minute YouTube video recently about a strawberry grower in Japan who charges three hundred and fifty pounds (50,000 Yen) for one single strawberry.

And does a brisk trade at these eyewatering prices.

You can watch the video below or at this link.

This grower is famous not only for selling the most expensive strawberries in the world but also for growing the best strawberries in the world as well.

Example 4: The doctor who makes house calls

(This business does something quite unexpected.)

There is a doctor in Brooklyn, New York.

Guess what he is doing in his medical practice to be famous?

He’s now making house calls through the internet.

Using Skype he puts himself in your house to talk to you and treat you.

He does one office visit to get all your background information, but he keeps up with his clients regularly either by walking around Brooklyn and visiting them or making contact through emails and Skype.

And he’s doing amazingly well.

There are dozens of simple strategies you can use to make your business ‘famous’ in some way.

In this article I discussed four of them.

1. You could become known as being very good at doing one thing. (The carpenter who was a master of fine wood).

2. You could offer an unusual service. (The instant Facebook business page to website service).

3. You could offer something that is remarkably expensive. (The world’s most expensive strawberries).

4. You could do something quite unexpected (The doctor who makes house calls).

Action exercise

What could you do this month to make your own business famous?

Graham McGregor is a marketing advisor. You can get his free 129-page marketing guide, The Plan B Sales Solution , at simplemarketinganswers.com