The 2 Most Effective Ways To Stand Out As An Entrepreneurial Small Business

Getting your money right is one of (top three) most important things that you can do to improve your life and get a handle on where your going. We are moving more and more to a more long tailed entrepreneur driven economy. More and more you’ll find big companies outsourcing and cutting down their staff to smaller and smaller numbers. And if you’re a lower or mid level male you’re going to be one of the first ones to go. Point is to survive in the future you’re essentially going to have to be an entrepreneur of sorts, all of us are. The stable job is going the way of the dinosaur and the only stability we’ll have is what our skills can get us.

So even if you’re working in the typical office don’t think that what’s in this article doesn’t apply to you. It will and may be something you need to learn sooner than you’d think. And for those of you that are solopreneurs, online marketers, or run small businesses then you’ll want to pay special attention. These methods dicussed here are the most potent I have found for rocketing above the noise and going from chasing customers to attracting them. These methods work in just about any business. I’ve done it with personal training, lawn businesses, and many more. Now for the two most effective ways to stand out as an entrepreneurial small business.

Strategy #1 – Niche Down Hard

Never forget that “there are riches in niches” in the new economy you’re not going to make it by competing with the big boys (think Wal-Mart, McDonalds, etc.) nor are you going to make it by competing on price. Trying to be a big chain without huge resources is going to get you killed. As a small business owner you have to stop fighting battles that you just can’t win (and that even if you did don’t have big payouts). The number one thing that kills small businesses is competing on price. Only commodities compete on price and if you’re a commodity then a big chain is going to blow you out of the water.

The first thing you need to do is find a niche that you don’t hate (don’t have to be super passionate about it) and has a large enough audience to support you (can be smaller than you’d think). Here’s an example with personal training. Don’t be just another personal trainer. Instead be a personal trainer for a very targeted market. You could be a personal trainer who specializes in bikini competitors, a personal trainer who specializes in divorced dads wanting to feel young again, a personal trainer who helps women over 50 lose weight, and so on and so forth.

Now you stand out head and shoulders above the average personal trainer. See what’s big in your area. Maybe you live in an area with a great high school football programs where you know there are dads with money that would shell out tons of it to have their kid trained by a football training specialist. And so on and so forth. With the internet you can just about be guaranteed that even if you have a passing interest in something that there is a niche out there that can support it.

Strategy #2 – Become The Guru

Another potent strategy is to become the guru of your specialization. To go to expert is another way of putting it. The strategy to becoming the go to expert is simply on paper but a little more complicated when it comes to execution. To survive in the modern marketplace (or even to have halfway decent rankings on Google) you have to publish content. Basic static websites that serve essentially as brochures online are not going to cut it anymore. You need to do content marketing as well, this isn’t a suggestion but a neccesity.

You have to choose at least one of the following to do on a consistent basis. Writing blog posts, YouTube videos, or having a podcast. You must also write at the very least one book. Being an author is one of the best ways to establish your credibility and authority in a new niche. My suggestion would be to record yourself doing a podcast on video. Then upload the audio file to iTunes as a podcast. the video file to YouTube as a YouTube video, and then pay a cheap transcriber to write the video out and post it as a blog post (with the video embedded in the post).

That way you’re taking each piece of your content as far as possible. You also want to write articles for publications related to your niche (or local if you run a local business) as well as write guest posts on popular blogs in your niche and pitch podcast interviews for popular podcasts/radio shows in your niche. You have nothing to lose by trying. Once your prospects see you again and again and again they’ll eventually come to you first when they have troubles relating to whatever your niche covers.

Summary

These strategies work in tadem with one another. Find a niche that you like and has a decent sized audience who is willing to spend money to have their problems solved/find enjoyment related to that niche. Then dominate that niche through a variety of means such as blog posts, articles, videos, podcasts, speaking engagements, doing your own research, writing a book (or books), and networking in the niche so that you become the go to expert in relation to your niche. Combine the two and you will have a income stream that’ll serve you for the rest of your life in a very unpredictable economy.

If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it. You can follow me on Twitter here.

-Charles Sledge