Introduction: 0:05

Welcome to the Small Business Marketing Huddle. Our show is all about taking action. We equip you with the marketing knowledge and confidence you need to make real progress. So let's huddle up and listen in to the latest episode with your host, Lily Richmond.

Lily Richmond: 0:30

Hey, this is Lily. Thanks for being here today. If you're already subscribed to the show, thank you so much. I do really appreciate you and I am really delighted that you are taking some proactive steps to take control of your marketing. If this is your first time here, don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button in your favorite podcast player, because today, like in every episode, I'm going to share a marketing topic that I think you've really got to learn if you want to master your marketing. And make sure you listen in until the end, because we're going to work together today to come up with a single sentence that states how you make your customers life better. And, like in all episodes, there's going to be a worksheet available for you to download, to work along with me as well. So let's get started.

Lily Richmond: 1:16

Okay, so today is part three of seven and my series on where to start with your marketing when you are just starting up in business. Just a quick recap In part one, I gave you some practical steps on how to make your product or service totally irresistible to your target market. In part two, you got the lowdown on how to define your target market and hone right in on who your ideal customer is, and today we are going to distill part one and two down into a single sentence that explains how you make your customers life better. And why are we doing this? Well, the reason that I wanted to focus on it is because it puts you in the mindset of thinking about your product, your service or your business in relation to how and I mean really how it makes your customers life better, and this is really important. As a marketer, this is one of the key things that you always have to think about when you're marketing your business. If you look at your business from the perspective of how it helps your customer live a better life, then it becomes so much easier to market your business and sell without well, let's just say being too salesy. Yep, we want sleaze free marketing all the way. So let's dive straight in Now.

Lily Richmond: 2:41

In your business travels and research into marketing, you might have heard terms like unique selling point, single minded message, unique value proposition, and these are all fine. In fact, you know they are really robust marketing concepts and they have been around since the dinosaurs roamed the earth, but I think they don't work that well for a small business owner. So why is that? Well, the focus tends to be more on your business than on the customer and again, these are often really off-putting, jargon filled ideas that can cause more confusion than anything.

Lily Richmond: 3:16

And if you haven't worked it out already by listening to other episodes in this podcast, I'm a really big advocate for you putting the customer first. You know they've got to be just the center of everything that you do. Without the customer, your business is nothing. And if you're just starting out in business, I want to really encourage you to get into a customer first mindset from the get go, and that is why we're asking such a powerful question how do you make your customers life better? It really is a question of how, not what, you do. You know it's not what the features of your product are. It's about trying to get to that essential nugget of how you help.

Lily Richmond: 4:00

And you know you're probably listening, thinking well, this is really simple and it might seem too simple, and I'm not much of a gambling woman, but I would take aback that many of your competitors out there, they're not thinking like this. They're thinking about themselves and they're thinking about their product or service and how they can sell more, and undoubtedly we all want to sell more. Of course we do. That's why we're in business. But this is really good for you that your competitors are probably not thinking about their customer first, because if you can unlock how you make their life better, then they're going to sit up and they're going to listen to what you have to say. You know why would I engage with a brand that is all about you? That's not helping me achieve the change that I want to experience or the transformation that I want to see, and it's certainly not helping me solve my problem. So, before we move on and work through an exercise, it's going to help you come up with that single sentence of how you make your customers life better. You really need to have completed the work from part one, which is episode six, and part two, which is episode seven.

Lily Richmond: 5:06

First, Because we're gonna use this work that you did there to distill down what your one sentence is and basically to answer this question really well. You've got to understand what it is you are offering to the world and you've got to understand who your customer is and what they're trying to achieve. When we do this exercise, you might take some time to come up with that one sentence or something that you feel is compelling enough, and that is totally fine. I do exercises like this all the time and I leave them for a day or two and I come back to it. You know, the subconscious mind is a really powerful powerful thing. It is gonna be working away In the background and you don't even know you're thinking about it. And so I find that by leaving something for a couple of days, I come back and I either build on it and make it better, I change it, or I go hey, it was perfect first time. But often you get some additional insights if you sort of let it sit for a little while. So are you ready to craft your one sentence on how to make your customers life better? Listen in after the break and I will take you through the exercise that you need to distill your thoughts down to a statement that's gonna make your business really compelling. Okay, here we go.

Lily Richmond: 6:25

First things first. I want you to book a time slot in your diary to do this, and I want it to be at a time of day that you are most energetic and productive and when you're less likely to be interrupted. If you do get interrupted a lot in your work day, give yourself some permission to take that time out. Go to a quiet cafe, wherever you need to go, to get that headspace that you need. It might even be going and sitting in your local part. Next, I want you to download the latest workbook. I'll drop a link in the show notes along with the links to the workbooks from episode six and seven of the podcast and, I've got to reiterate again, if you haven't done this work yet, from episode six and seven, and they're accompanying workbooks. I strongly recommend that you listen to those episodes first, do their work related to those, finish off and come back.

Lily Richmond: 7:14

So we're going to tackle this exercise in three parts. First, I want you to reflect on those deeper reasons why your ideal customer would use your product or service, and you would have covered this in workbook too. So take another look at that first. See what you came up with and revisit it. Just reflect on it. What was their main motivation? Jot that one down. Then I'm going to get you to brainstorm what your ideal customer's goal is. What are they trying to achieve? So they've got an underlying motivation there and they're going to want to achieve something. What is that? And here I want you to settle on what you think their primary or main goal is. Okay, that's step one. Completed Step two.

Lily Richmond: 7:59

I now want you to think about the problem that stands between your ideal customer and that goal that you came up with in the last exercise. Nine times out of 10, consumers purchase because they want to achieve something, but there usually is a problem that's sitting in their way, and whatever it is they're buying is helping them to alleviate that. So it's really important to try and start thinking about your products or services in that way. They are a way to help a consumer to remove roadblocks and get things done, achieve higher goals, tap into deeper motivations and purposes. So in this part of the exercise, I want you to jot down your ideas on what that problem could be. There could be more than one, and I would recommend in that case, that you select the one that is most pressing, the primary problem. Now this is where your business comes in. How does your product or service or your business, help the consumer to solve that problem that they've identified? Look back at the workbook, workbook one. It is where you came up with those buying priorities and the product benefits for your individual business. These should really give you the clues you need to help you identify how you solve that problem for the customer.

Lily Richmond: 9:17

And now we're onto the home straight, part three. It is time for us to put it all together. Are you ready? I'm gonna run through some statements and I want you to fill in the blanks. And this is where the workbook does come in handy, because you can fill it out as you go. Okay, so, to kick off, my ideal customer wants to blank, and in there I want you to state their goal. Okay, so my ideal customer wants to achieve a particular goal in order to blank, and in here I want you to summarize their deeper motivation. Okay, so my ideal customer wants to achieve this particular goal in order to tap into a deeper motivation. Why are they doing it? That's the deeper motivation piece. What's the underlying reason for why they want to achieve this goal?

Lily Richmond: 10:04

The next part of the statement is the main problem they are trying to solve is blank, and I want you to put the problem in there. And my product or service helps solve it by blank. I want you to put in the main way that you help them solve that problem. Now that you've completed that whole phrase, I want you to look at it and I want you to think about a one sentence statement that starts with I make my customers life better by and remember, this is the how. How are you doing it? And that earlier piece of work that you've just done about filling in those blanks that's going to give you some really, really good insight into how you're going to make your consumers life better. Okay, that's it, you've nailed it.

Lily Richmond: 10:50

Now you might be thinking this is all great. How am I going to use all of this? Well, there are plenty of ways that this can influence how you market your business. Getting your messaging right is key for you to be able to connect with your customer, so you could use this in a variety of ways to help you develop more impactful messaging. So what are some examples? You could use it to create really engaging and impactful headlines for brushes or website pages, for example. Or maybe you could show the consumer how you help them solve their problem with a series of short form videos for social media.

Lily Richmond: 11:28

Or it could be as simple as creating a really compelling call to action statement across your marketing, instead of the boring old get in touch, contact us. You could opt for ready to blank, where you insert the customer goal into your call to action. One of the calls to action that I use is really to take control of your marketing question mark. It's actually empowering the consumer. So that's how you can use a much more active, engaging and empowering call to action rather than the boring old contact us for details, get a quote, for example. So these are just a few of the ways that you can use your single sentence of how you make your customers life better to do better marketing. But above all, I want you to keep this statement in the back of your mind at all times when you think about your marketing, and then you will be off to such a great start in business.

Lily Richmond: 12:25

Thank you so much for being part of the huddle today. I hope you enjoyed yet another episode. Don't forget to hit subscribe because next time, in part four of the series on where to start with your marketing when you're just starting out in business, we are going to work out how to set pricing to win business and make profits, and I've got a special guest joining me to talk all things pricing, what to watch out for, what are some of the common questions and concerns for business owners when they first start out. So I'm really excited about this episode. Pricing is so critical to your business. This is key for when you're starting up in business.

Lily Richmond: 13:04

And as a quick reminder, visit the episode description to get access to today's show notes and it'll have links there to all of the workbooks and you can access it there. Or, if you prefer to get today's workbook, you can head to my website and download it directly and that's at https://marketingondemand. co/startup3 and that's number three. Thank you so much for listening in today and I will catch you at the next episode of the Small Business Marketing Huddle. Now for the legal jargon. This podcast is for information and education purposes only. We make no business performance claims or guarantees in the information shared. The podcast content is general in nature and does not constitute advice for your unique business situation.