Without clarity, there can be only confusion.
As much as we want to pretend 2020 didn’t happen, much of the economic upheaval is being carried over into 2021.
But that doesn’t mean you’re powerless. In fact, this is a good time to reassess your business goals and determine if you need to make changes to stay profitable during the new year.
With all this in mind, the word we’ve chosen as our Word of the Year for 2021 is CLARITY.
Why clarity is essential for your business
When you’re starting out, you might know exactly what you want to sell and how you intend on marketing it. However, most of the time when we have discovery calls with prospective clients, it’s scary how vague their answers can be!
A certain amount of flexibility is required as a business owner, but that doesn’t mean you should be wandering around the entrepreneurial landscape completely clueless!
We see this all the time when people enquire about our services.
In order to understand where they are at and what they hope to achieve with online marketing, we ask them a number of questions.
Now, some people have all their ducks in a row and they’re ready to hit the ground running. They understand that marketing is an investment (NOT an expense! Big difference!) and they also know that paid advertising is the quickest way to grow their customer base and sell more.
But other people… well.. it can be challenging to tie down their answers.
When we ask them what they are currently doing to market their business, sometimes we hear: “Well, we’re still figuring that out.” or “We don’t believe in paid advertising.”
And we have to keep a straight face.
Here’s the hard truth.
You know that Coca Cola is one of the biggest companies in the world and it believes in spending money on advertising, right?
Why would you think your company is exempt and doesn’t need to market itself?
Or we’ll ask them who exactly they want to sell to and we get told: “everyone”.
Unless you’re selling toilet paper, it’s smarter to niche down to your ideal customer.
And even if you can sell to a variety of different niches, isn’t there one type of person that you’d prefer to sell to or do work for?
Are you seeing your business with clarity?
That’s where the magic happens.
Niching down helps you craft your ad copy, blog posts, social media content and everything in between with a consistent brand voice and message.
The reason is simple.
When you speak to a certain type of person who has a specific problem that your products and services solve, all your marketing efforts are streamlined and consistent.
Clarity my friends. You need clarity.
Otherwise, you’re just taking shots in the dark.
Boosting a Facebook post here and there, getting zero results and deciding to write off Facebook/Instagram ads because “they don’t work” isn’t good enough. The resources and training are out there to do it properly.
Things you should have absolute clarity about
Here are some things you should have 100% clarity about:
1. What problem you help your customer solve
2. What you sell to solve their problem (physical product, E-product, service etc.)
3. Who exactly you sell it to (B2C, B2B and your ideal customer avatar)
4. How much you sell it for
5. How you sell it (physical shop? Online? Over the phone or via sales reps?)
6. Your marketing strategy comprising of brand building and lead generation. Note, these are two different things that work together to help you land more clients and make more sales.
Online marketing is what we help our clients with. For more information, click here.
Benefits of having clarity in your business
When you examine your business to find clarity on the points we listed above, everything becomes so much easier.
We recommend that you do an audit each point and see if you find any strengths that you might want to leverage even more.
Or maybe you’ll spot some weaknesses that need to be worked on.
Clarity leads to opportunities
Say for instance that your product solves a particular problem, but you keep getting customers asking for something slightly different. Based on this regular feedback, you might realise that there is a market for that alternative and decide to add it to your product line or services.
In other words, your customers might have another problem that you haven’t thought of but that you are able to solve and generate more revenue from.
For example, let’s say you’re a life coach and you offer 1:1 sessions at a premium fee. Your clients love you, but several of them have enquired if there’s a more economical way to work with you.
Taking this feedback into consideration, you might decide to offer a group coaching program where you have a 1-hour session with 4 people at the same time.
You charge a reduced rate and you lead the discussion to help the group with a particular goal.
Your clients won’t get as much attention and individual feedback as a 1:1 session, but they will benefit from the group support, your overall guidance and they’ll enjoy the lower price point.
Plus, you will make way more money in that 1 hour by charging 4 people a reduced fee than you would have by seeing just one person at the full price.
It’s a win-win.
Here’s another example of how clarity might lead to opportunity.
Let’s say you’re a personal trainer and you help your clients firm up and build muscle with your program, either in the gym or maybe you offer online sessions where your clients workout from the comfort of their own home.
Several of your clients express to you that while they are excited about getting fitter and stronger, they also want to lose weight and eat the right food to support that goal.
The problem is that you’re not a dietician so you can’t give them dietary advice.
But with a clarity-focused and solution-oriented mindset, you realise that this is not only a problem that your clients want your help to solve, there’s also an opportunity for you to make more money.
So, you network with some dieticians until you find a few that you absolutely trust and can confidently endorse. You negotiate with them that for every client that you send their way, you receive a referral fee.
Again, it’s a win-win for all parties. Your clients get customized dietary advice from a trusted, registered dietician. The dietician/s get more clients from your recommendations. And you receive a referral fee for connecting the two parties together.
Now, you could have just told your clients that you are not qualified to give dietary advice and they should Google dieticians, but the alternative scenario is so much better!
Of course, they don’t have to use the dieticians you recommend, but it’s a great way to show that you’ve considered their pain point (wanting to eat better) and you’ve come up with a solution for them to consider. Not only can you make some money out of it, but you’re keeping your clients happy by showing that you truly listen to their feedback.
So, when you look at the list of things you should have clarity on, consider them to be opportunities to do things better in your business.
Closing thoughts
Clarity is the antidote to confusion and that’s the energy and focus we want to bring to 2021.
In our own business, we too are digging even deeper to find absolute clarity on who we serve, what we offer them in terms of marketing services.
Currently, we offer tailor-made online marketing solutions for those who have a decent marketing budget and are ready to invest in online marketing.
And we have loads of self-study courses to help smaller business owners who do all their social media and online paid marketing themselves.
Clarity is how we’re going to succeed this year and beyond.
It’s our Word of the Year, but you can borrow it any time you like.
Lean into whatever word you choose, and let it give you strength and direction to make this year a success.
