More To Life Than Shoes

As a professional or a businessperson, how do you stand out from the competition and explain to people why they should pick you above your competitors? I hear this question all the time from accountants, management consultants, HR experts, lawyers and coaches, and it applies equally to many other small business owners.

My clients often bemoan the fact that a competitor has a much higher profile than they do, often with much less experience. What are they doing wrong? Usually, they're missing the fact that their competitor has simply found a way to convey their uniqueness to their clients and create a compelling argument for why any client should sign up with them.

How can you get people to pick you?
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to get going:

What’s going on with my current clients?
It can pay to sell yourself as a specialist. For example, if you are a therapist with a large percentage of clients who have depression, perhaps it makes sense to use that as your uniquene selling point (U.S.P) -  that you specialise in working with depression.

If most of your clients are coming to you for a specific reason, even if you could be doing a wider variety of work, perhaps you should be sticking to what you already do well. Someone is sending you a message somewhere!

What do I have that is different from everyone else?
This is a difficult one and you may have to dig deep. But what do clients say about working with you? Do you have qualifications over and above your professional competitors? Celebrity clients? These don’t even have to be the Grazia and OK type of celebrities, even household business names come under celebrity status when it comes to PR. Name drop with impunity! What do you do for your clients beyond the call of duty? Really think about what it is you offer them.

 And if you can’t think of anything...then start doing something. Today.

Work a little differently, give them added extras. Just make a difference.

Is it time to Get Over Myself?
Shyness is acceptable in your first job. But that was then. Most clients would rather work with someone who is confident, unflustered and doesn't go to pieces at the thought of being in the spotlight, So, If you have any qualms about putting yourself forward, get over them.

 You can promote yourself in a way that doesn’t involve putting down others, resorting to bragging or lying or hot air. Be proud about what you have achieved, show people the professionalism you put into your work and the delight you get out of it.

Share success on social media platforms, at networking events, support your clients publicly and even create your own community of loyal clients and customers. You can do this virtually on places like Facebook or in real life by organising events (one of my successful marketing activities has been to organise occasional PR and networking evenings – for free).

How can I turn my competitors into compatriots?
Create a special interest or mastermind group where you can interact with other figures in your industry. Hunt out professional bodies and events when you will find them. Befriend them, create special projects and start working with rather than against them.

Find more PR ideas and advice from Paula at www.doyourownpr.com

PR expert Paula Gardner believes good PR is like learning a language. It takes a lot of work, but if you keep in mind why you're doing it, you can get great results. 

I'm learning Italian at the moment. I was inspired to start last year, when I was stranded in Rome for two weeks because of the Icelandic volcano eruption. But I also decided to do it because giving up languages is one of the two main things in my life that I regret. (The other is getting rid of a gorgeous pair of black thigh-high boots in a moment of madness. I've never been able to remedy the boot mistake, despite years of searching, but the language one I can do something about.)

But PR has its own language too, which can be just as much of a mystery to the beginner as when to use i and gli in Italian is to me.

You've probably heard the terms press release, tip sheets, product shots or digital PR, plus a whole host of other phrases that are bandied about. And you may well be using some of these already, but there is an art to knowing when to use each one, and how often.

It's all about communication. Just as one perfectly composed sentence is not going to fill a whole conversation with a native Italian-speaker, one press release is not going to make an on-going conversation with the press. You need to communicate regularly, persistently and, if it doesn't work one time, pick yourself up and try again.

Fluency will come over time. I have clients who previously baulked at the idea of picking up the phone and talking to the press, who now do it without a moment's angst. I have others who, in the beginning, just couldn't find the time, let alone the ideas, to create some create PR, who have now integrated it into their routine.

What makes The Difference?
 When I first started learning Italian I was a bit flaky, I have to admit. I bought a book and opened that once. My mother-in-law lovingly collected all the Michel Thomas CDs that came free with The Daily Express and handed them to me. I think that there were ten of them and I didn't get past CD two for a long while.

But what made the difference was finally deciding I either had to give up on the idea altogether (and remain stuck and extremely annoyed at myself for not even trying) or go for it.

I conjured up my vision on what learning Italian would mean to me (shopping in the Via Veneto, Rome!) and decided to go for it. I now have a one-to-one lesson each week with a native Italian-speaker, and have come on in leaps and bounds.

So, what exactly would getting some great PR mean for you? More people coming to your site? More newsletter sign-ups? More sales? Credibility? A morale boost for your team?

Are all those great things enough to get you to commit to doing some PR, or raising your PR game? What are you going to do first?

Paula Gardner is a PR expert who runs Do Your Own PR.

This year sees me taking a slightly different tack with my business. I’ve been showing small business owners how they can do their own PR for over eight years now, and whilst I know I can easily  teach them how to put a press release together or go through how to set up a media list, there’s another element to the learning process that I am finding I need to cover just as much.

And that’s confidence around PR.  Many of my clients have great products or stories and yet still find the ideas of getting building a buzz around their business quite daunting. It’s almost as if they are anxious that attracting attention will also attract criticism, or that it’s just not the done thing to tell people about yourself or your business.

Sometimes they come right out and say it. Sometimes it will just show itself as procrastination or perfectionism. Either way it holds people back. And it stops businesses from growing.

 I can empathise with not wanting to put yourself under the spotlight. Brought up by reserved parents, it was deemed a good survival tactic to just get on with things academically, keep your head down and stay under the radar. Whilst I was expected to achieve,  talking about it was considered wrong.

And I have had conversations with many of my clients where they tell me a similar story.

It took me a long time, well over ten years, to realise that staying under the radar isn’t conducive to success, either personal or business success.  As a result I try to continuously stretch my comfort zone. I am not a natural speaker. I like writing. It’s my thing. But I do push myself to give talks, even arrange open evenings where I make presentations to clients just to keep me on my toes.  I try to say yes to as much as possible, as I never know where it might lead. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that after years of keeping my head down, I decided to write a book called Get Noticed!

And I do try to help clients do the same thing. I have seen time and time again how making the effort to come out of the shadows transforms both them and their business. I had a client that went pale at the very idea of cold calling journalists and would give me every excuse under the sun why she hadn’t done it. One day, fed up with hearing her own excuses, she did it and sheepishly admitted to me that it wasn’t half as bad as she had imagined.

Another client wanted to attract a small number of journalists who were knowledgeable about a particular technical IT area, but was nervous about contacting them direct. We started working on a blog together and within a week some of these journalists were visiting his blog. Now they all go down the pub together!

It is exciting to see my clients grow and their businesses blossom once they get past a fear of putting themselves out there.  If this resonates with you in any way, I’d like to put it to you that this might be just the time for you too to step out of the shadows, and into the spotlight.