Is Being “Unique” Enough? A Real Take on Small Business Strategy
Are these small business tips actually helping entrepreneurs or leading them astray? In this reaction, Matt dissects 5 popular strategies for business success—from the value of being unique to the risks of branding yourself too personally. Learn what really matters for long-term growth and customer loyalty.
There are tons of people out on social media giving business advice. Some of it is good advice, but most of it isn’t good. In this series watch CapForge’s owner react to different advice videos. He’s an expert in all things business and has 20+ years of experience under his belt. Some of the things he reacts to might even surprise you!
Video Transcript:
Business Advice Video:
Here’s my top five tips for small businesses to survive and thrive. One, be unique. What makes you unique and different? Know your market. Make sure you know who you’re selling to so that you know how to sell to them properly and you’re giving them what they want. Put a face to your brand. Make yourself your brand. Be super service oriented and caring. Customer service is everything. Be aware of the competition, but do your own thing. So know what’s going on. But the more clever and unique you are in this world, and the more you do your own thing, the more you stand out.
Matt’s Review:
OK, this is again, I would say some mixed-bag advice in my opinion. The first thing she says is be unique. Not necessarily. I mean, if you’re a house painting company, how unique can you be? People at the end of it want their house painted. They don’t expect you to show up in a funny clown car and wear costumes and do a song and dance routine in the middle of a painting. Yes, that would be very unique, but it doesn’t help get the job done. So you want to be different from the competition in a way that also is valued by the customer. So just being different in itself isn’t necessarily a good thing. Be better than, offer more value, more speed, more service, better pricing, something that can give you a sustainable long-term advantage and differentiate you from the competition, but not just being unique for the sake of being unique. She also mentioned putting a face with the brand. We just looked at another video where the whole point was when you become the face of your business, You can actually hurt the value of your business because now people want to deal with the person behind the business and if you want to sell it, that person’s no longer there. So now what are they getting? Are you going to still do the commercials and the ads and still answer the phone? And you know, they want to talk to Joe Smith of Joe Smith Plumbing and Joe Smith doesn’t own the business anymore. What happens? So not sure I agree with that one. I do think you need to be aware of the competition. That was her last point. But you don’t necessarily need to copycat everything they do. Understand the value you’re bringing and why you may not do everything they do, but it’s still a better outcome for the customers you’re serving. And for sure, know your market, know who your customer is, know what you’re selling to them.And make sure that service is as good as you can possibly get it. That really is a the better your customer service, the better you’re gonna do overall. That’s just a one-to-one relationship, can’t argue with that. So mixed bag on the advice, some good points, some less good points.
