How to Use Your Best Client Stories to Demonstrate Your Expertise
Marketing Stories – How to Use Your Best Client Stories to Demonstrate Your Expertise
By Jerry N Smith
Expertise is attractive
As a business owner there is a good chance you are an expert in your chosen field. Whether this expertise comes from study, experience or “natural skills”, clients and prospects want to work with a proven expert.
This is the good news. There are some complications however. Whilst most of us like to work with experts, we tend NOT to like being told all about that expertise. This is especially true when that explanation is couched in terms of accolades won, experience gained, services provided etc.
It is natural for you to want to demonstrate your specialist, valuable knowledge. How do you do that if you can’t tell people about it?
Remember it isn’t about you
This is one of the key messages about marketing. You need to figure out what is important in your prospects world and how your expertise addresses that. You will get the chance to talk about your skills but NOT YET. In the initial phases of a conversation you need to get your message across without overtly “telling” people how good you are.
The reason for this is twofold:
1) Many people have been subjected to so-called experts explaining what makes them so. They have heard it so often, from so many people that they tend to downplay it. The messages all sound similar. They get that you are good, but so was the last person they heard from. In the worst case scenario they will dismiss what you are saying as boastful or just sales speak
2) More importantly, if you are talking about your skills and accolades the message is not clearly addressing your client and their challenges. You are leaving it up to them to make the connection between your industry award and their issues.
One of the best examples of this is the issue of customer service. Many businesses are, rightly, proud of their customer service and consider that an edge over the competition. You have probably heard this as a marketing message: “Customer service is what makes us different” and so on.
Think about this for a minute (especially if you use this yourself).
- Firstly I assume that you have great customer service. That is the minimum I expect from my service providers. Therefore it isn’t a differentiator
- Secondly: every other company vying for my business says that too (nobody says: “our customer service isn’t great to be honest”). Again, this is not a message that grabs my attention – I expect it
- Thirdly: what does customer service mean? How is it better than the competition and why should I care? How does it apply to me?
This is true of most things you can say about you and your business. If you have a truly unique service that nobody else provides you are lucky. However most of us aren’t in that situation and even if you are you STILL need to make your message relevant to the audience.
Stories are a great way to engage interest
Humans generally love stories. A well told story has us relating to the characters and the message. We can see ourselves in the story and therefore relate the message to ourselves. When this is a business story we want to know more. This is where it becomes a great vehicle for marketing.
Using the above example of customer service, here is a story about general insurance (as it might be told to a prospect):
Insurance is competitive and often price driven. However I had a client who was extremely busy running his company. He knew that he needed insurance but didn’t have time or the interest in shopping around and his pet peeve was receiving a renewal notice in the mail that indicated his premium had gone up. The price issue wasn’t the concern, rather it was the disruption to his schedule and the fact that his agent hadn’t bothered to contact him to discuss the premium rise or even warn him.
He changed insurers not because of price or coverage, although those obviously had to be in line with the market generally. He was more interested in working with an agent who kept in touch by advising him BEFORE a renewal came due and offering him the chance to talk.
In addition he was interested in personal contact after storms to ensure there was no damage his house and offering assistance on a claim if that proved necessary.
Due to his busy schedule this client didn’t have his papers perfectly filed. It was invaluable to him to be able to call his agent (or email) at any time and get a reply about his coverage within the hour. Having that service was why he switched.
What are your client’s issues and concerns – how does your expertise help?
The story above is real. The business passion of the insurance agent was to make sure that his clients were covered but more importantly, that they didn’t have to worry about managing the administration around that.
This may not appeal to everyone. Some are much more organized and cost driven about insurance therefore will switch on cost alone. These are not the clients this agent is targeting.
When you use stories the following points are key:
- You are clear on your ideal client and on their issues/concerns/likes and dislikes
- Your story covers those concerns
- The listener can relate to the “hero” of the story. By the way, the hero IS NOT YOU. The hero is the subject of the story
- When the story relates to their world they will see, hear and feel how you led the hero from a problem to a better situation and YOU WILL GET CREDIT for that
- They will want to know how you did that and how you can do it for them
Throughout this process you haven’t told anyone how great you are. You have demonstrated your passion for what you do and an empathy with them. Stories work.
Jerry Smith is the co-founder of Marketing Action Club, focusing on small service based businesses and independent professionals who want to grow but struggle to attract quality clients consistently.
Visit http://www.marketingactionclub.com for more resources on how to market your small business effectively
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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Very useful article. Having testimonials definitely helps display your expertise in a certain field. This will also make your site and you more credible.