How do you show you care?

When you’re considering how you would like your business to be perceived by prospects you’d like to attract and customers you’d like to keep, you’ve probably looked at:

The types of problems that your customers have that you resolve
The products and services that you offer to resolve their problems

Hopefully you’ve considered:

How you’ve adapted your offering to make it totally relevant to your target audience
The appropriate price point that reflects the level of service or quality of product

How else can you reassure that you are the one they should choose?

Well, you’ll be demonstrating your understanding and expertise in your blogs and using testimonials to support your marketing messages.

What you’ve been doing by noting down the areas mentioned above is creating a positioning or benefit statement. This is a powerful document to refer to to ensure all your marketing communications are consistent and crystal clear. It helps to differentiate you and your business from your competitors and makes it far easier for people to choose to do business with you.

What more can you do to tip the scales in your favour?

There’s one more question to consider, which will help your prospects and customers form a more complete picture about you and your business and that is:

Larger organisations will consider this as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy, but that doesn’t mean that smaller companies and indeed micro business can ignore this question.

Showing how you care can really make the difference. It may be a charity that you are affiliated to for personal reasons or it may be a process introduced to the business that benefits the community or the environment. Here are some examples.

Connick Tree Care

Mike Connick tells me that on average they ship 50 tonnes of wood chip per week to various biomass renewable energy plants. They also donate some of the woodchip to local community and school projects for pathways and soft landing areas within woodland play areas.

Rowcolour – Printing and Design

I remember Steve Parker telling me, when he attended a marketing planning workshop, that he was very conscious about the importance of looking after the environment, which is why they offer a wide range of recycled papers, either 100% recycled or partially recycled and minimise the use of oil based products. He can also tell you at any time how many thousands of trees the Woodland Trust has been able to plant due to their support.

Reigate Manor Hotel

Many companies choose a charity to support. Reigate Manor supports St. Catherine’s Hospice. They are entering at team into the Dragon Boat race again this year and four members of staff are running in the Run Reigate half marathon to raise funds for the charity. These activities are great team building events and has also enabled them to donate thousands of £s.

Lloyd HR Consultancy

Charlie Lloyd jumps out of planes and organizes magnificent dinner dances to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis Society, a charity close to her heart. She’s created Charlie’s Angels Foundation to direct all her charity work through.

Dorking Rugby Club Networking

Hopefully you’ve heard of this award winning networking event run by myself and Chris Webb of Marks Howard. We are both supporters of Dorking Rugby Club. The business club that is now 2 years old sits very nicely with our businesses. All the money we raise from this networking group (c£5K so far) goes to Dorking Rugby Club, which is a charity with a ‘one club ethos’, developing junior players to represent the First XV or to play the game at a senior level elsewhere. Many life skills are picked up and lifelong friendships made being a member of the club.

Find out more…