Guarantee Your Reliability

Let's begin with a question: How could you dominate a market?
One key to doing it is to ask yourself, "What frustration(s) do people experience when dealing with people in my industry or profession?" Find the answer and then go for it. Make solving that frustration your own Unique Selling Proposition.

Take trades people or contractors as an example. The almost universal frustration is that they are unreliable. So, a firm that sets up its operations to reverse that and be totally reliable is bound to win. That's particularly true if the firm guarantees what it does. For instance, "When we say we'll be there at 10 o'clock, if we're not, the first half hour of the job is on us."

As one client said recently, even to get a tradesperson to quote a time would be a major breakthrough, never mind guaranteeing it. The FIXZIT people in Brisbane, Australia are a good example. They've built a franchised chain almost solely on solving the frustrations that people feel. They carry it through with wonderful thank-you cards and performance guarantees. Their thank-you card serves a dual purpose; it also surveys their customers.
So, what is it for you? If we went out in the marketplace and asked customers of your industry or profession what the biggest frustration is that they have dealing with this particular industry, what would they say? If you knew, you could take the idea and make sure they never experience that frustration when they deal with you.
Let's take a simple example. Hairdressers, or if you like, doctors. Every single one of us has been kept waiting by these people. So, a hairdresser or a doctor who advertised similarly will reap significant rewards: "The only hairdresser in ABC town who is professional and caring enough to make it up to you in a big way if you're kept waiting for longer than two minutes."
Importantly, we need to understand, too, that doing things this way not only gets you significant new business, it also can get you significant price gains.