How to Stand Out in Your Industry

For a business owner, the most productive thing that you can do to really drive good energy to your business is to ensure that the people around you or the clients that you’re onboarding, understand and appreciate who you are and what you represent. Not because of your service or your product, but because you’re a kickass person.

To stand out in your industry, you need to provide value.

The value that I’m talking about today is the value that you’re bringing to the conversation and the communication as it relates to getting your message out there. If you’re not doing this, if you’re leaving that out and not incorporating value into your marketing, your business plan, you’re tripping over dollars. You’re going to be leaving a lot of time, money, energy wasted because nobody wants to hear about how fabulous your service is. They want to know if their number one needs are being met. They want to know that you’re the solution to their problem. And it’s not just the problem they are buying your service for. It’s all the other things that go with that.

Here are some other ideas on how you can stand out in your industry.

When you’re engaging in a conversation with someone, pay attention to what they are saying and think about what you could do to help them. Is there a person that you know in your network that they need to be introduced to because that person can totally help them? If so, you can connect them. That’s number one. Start with the people that already know, like and trust you and as we get really good at building value for those people, then we can move on into opening up our network. 

My second point about adding value is to ask the questions, Hey, what are you working on right now? What’re your current areas of focus? How can I support you? All those questions are open-ended and it will lead you to additional opportunities to either explore connections or explore collaborations or invite some other form of partnership that’s going to support you. Engage, ask their specific areas of focus and how you can support them. That’s another way to stand out and add value to the relationships and your business world. 

The last point is economically very easy – referrals. You don’t have to necessarily refer clients to others if you’re not at that level yet but you can forward them podcast guest opportunities or other opportunities that you run into if they fit the bill. 

This allows others to see you as a giver, allows them to have more touches of your brand without it being all about the sales and it will invite partnerships in some way, shape or form. 

Keep these three things in mind as it relates to adding value and putting you in a place where you’re standing out amongst your perceived competition. 

If you found this helpful, I encourage you to share your thoughts with me in the comments!