A Great Story

New year, new goals, maybe even a new you? Most of you are in the service industry. Given that, you are the product. Even if you produce reports like market studies, appraisals, environmental reports, construction or architectural drawings/renderings, you name it, you are still the product. Other than the fact that people can’t resist the word “free” (especially if it’s in all caps with exclamation points after it), the important truism in business is that people like to do business with people they know and like. Oh, and it’s all personal. That line, “hey, don’t take this personally, it’s just business” is bull. If there are people involved at all, it’s personal...personal on some level. So again I say, no matter what you do in this industry you are the product.

So new year, new goals, probably not a new you. But maybe, hopefully, an improved you. Why not?   To not work on improving ourselves is to grow stagnant. Complacent - feeling so satisfied with your own abilities or situation that you feel you do not need to try any harder. Or worse, like on one of my Netflix indulgences, Person of Interest – you don’t want to become irrelevant. No one wants to be irrelevant in their career. So let’s assume you’re in a mindset of self-improvement. And let’s assume that since you understand that you are the product and you’re a great product, how do you capture market share? How do you stand out where competition is stiff and of course budgets are tight? Try creating a “great little story” and work on word of mouth. We can all remember stories, and spend a lot of time talking…as a matter of fact some studies show that personal stories make up 65% of our conversations. [CONTINUE READING HERE]