E-tip No. 63 – More about being different

The product that appeals to everyone appeals to no-one (Seth Godin)

I’ve written several time’s before about the need to be different and thought I’d take a moment to remind you of this and give some real-life examples of what I’m talking about. I was in Geneva a few weeks ago at a Geneva Women in International Trade meeting and some great examples I met were:
· A laughter coach – yes really!
· A company that assesses company training needs and matches them with the relevant provider
· Using African drumming in management development
· A career continuance coach for the partners of people seconded to another country

As the Ski season is about to start, and with 170 chalet companies believing they’re competing for the same clients it’s so important to tailor what you offer to stand out amongst the crowd. And these can be the tiniest of details.

For example, there’s a new bar restaurant just opened here – Brasserie Le Pic (www.barlepic.com). Some of the points of difference they offer are:
· A free ‘Pic Up’ service for dinner reservations of 4 or more people for Les Get/Morzine – there are a handful of taxis here for perhaps 50,000 tourists! And do you fancy walking when the outside temperature is minus 15 degrees?!
· Non-smoking – the only bar/restaurant around here that is
· Free WiFi Internet access – one of just 3 bars in Morzine/Les Gets that offers this
· A ‘fizz’ night for ladies – you rent the glass for 5 euros and it gets topped up!
· Tapas and vegetarian food – something a little different from the traditional local cheese, meat and potato dishes (which they offer too)
So you see, it doesn’t take much to be a little different to stand out nor cost a great deal to get great returns on your investment. For example, the WiFi access is essentially free as the business needs it anyway!

It’s so easy to get caught up in the moment of what you’re doing but key is continuing marketing – building up next year’s customers as well as this years repeat business – such as listening to your customers, and I mean really listening to what they say. Not what you think they say. E-tip No. 6 has more on this

These are just some of the effective ways I know to do this that just take a few minutes a week and pay huge dividends. I was calculating today the return on investment of one chalet company I’m working with on the marketing front and it comes in at about 4500%! Do you know any investments that deliver that in 6 weeks?

So what can you do to stand out?

Until we meet,

Anthony

©Anthony Davis 2006. All rights reserved