If you (or your company) vanished from the landscape tomorrow, would anyone notice?
I’m not talking about your death here – just your business (or service, if you’re a provider of things like copy, graphics, design, etc.).
Oh sure, your clients would notice for a moment. Or a day.
But how about a week later?
What about even after they had found your replacement?
Would your clients look back a year from now, sigh, and lament the loss of your business or service?
This is a question you might contemplate quietly, in your “secret heart”. You know the answer already. And if the answer is, “They wouldn’t miss me much”… it’s time to go to work.
The best way to ensure your prosperity is to matter. To make a difference.
I’m not talking about “making a difference” in some cotton-candy-dreamy-fuzzy-feel-good kind of way. I’m not talking about charity work (though I believe that’s important, it’s a different discussion). I’m talking about adding so much value (in real, measurable ways) to people’s lives that if you went missing, they would notice. And they would be sorry. Over the long term.
Making a difference is the single best strategy for you and your business in today’s economy. Or any economy, for that matter.
Hi Ray, this is a great post - thanks for the discussion it kicked off in my head.
One question I guess I would ask is - if you are in a market where there is in reality only one competitor, but he's more well-known but less hmm, how shall we say, professional; how would you recommend going about differentiating yourself from him so that you are the go-to man for anything to do with my niche topic?
And also, trying to be that valuable that people would miss you - hmm, I wish I wish - but this is a brand exercise - no - as well as a value exercise? So how would you recommend improving your brand to then engender this kind of "fan-dom"
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