Five Reasons to Create Your Signature System

Many business owners have the makings of a memorable product or service but don’t quite manage to put all of the ingredients together. They struggle, and so do their potential customers – because it isn’t clear what’s being offered.

One of the best ways to stand out and to take your business from “ok” to extraordinary is to create a signature system that only you provide. This can be a certain process or approach you use when you work with clients, a single product that you want to be known for (even though you’ll also have others) or even your unique variation of a familiar theme.

When you create a system around how you work with your clients, and how you deliver your services or products, you’re doing many things:

• You’re creating consistency in how you deliver your work – so that all clients receive the same standard of service
• You’re making it possible for others on your team to give consistent service based on the system you created
• You’re elevating your status as an expert – because you’re going to be perceived as having a higher value than someone who doesn’t present themselves in this way
• You’re building a brand – one that your customers can understand and experience, and tell other people about
• You’re making it easier on yourself – because you have a consistent approach to follow – and you have a foundation of content that you can package into multiple revenue streams
• You’re making it easier to market your services – because you have a way to describe them,  and you will use this message again and again

If you’re just starting out, you’re in the ideal place to create a system. You have the benefit of being able to establish an overall system, and then developing products or services that follow the same overarching content. You can design all of your marketing to feature your signature system.

If you’ve been in business for a while and you don’t have one stand-out system, you will more than likely have a patchwork of products and services that have evolved over time. You have the benefit of experience and being able to measure what has worked and what hasn’t. Now is the time to look for a common theme or way of working with your clients that you can call your very own.

 No matter where you are in your business life, creating a signature system is one of the very best strategies you can use to accelerate your business and get more mileage out of your most valuable asset – you!

Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success System^TM for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and  unlock their business potential for greater  personal freedom and prosperity. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful entrepreneurial adventure. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for free tips on how to go from overwhelmed employee and business owner to extraordinary entrepreneur.

How to repurpose anything

If you’ve followed me for a while you know my double duty rule. I don’t say yes to any opportunity unless I know I can get more than a one-time use out of it. Leveraging work you’ve already done is a huge profit maker and time saver, and it’s just so much easier!

For example, if I have written a presentation, I pitch it to organizations who might be interested. Right now for example, I am repackaging a presentation I began as a speaking group assignment to deliver to community organizations and business owners in my area.

I also take the key points from lessons I teach and rework them (in less detail of course) as future weekly articles or blog posts. These are all examples of how you can get more mileage out of work when you’ve already done the heavy lifting.

Lest you think you don’t have anything old worth repurposing, I challenge you to go back through materials you’ve created in the past. In my previous consulting work, I created many documents related to staff communications, public relations and fundraising. Recently I was going through them again, and was amazed to see how much of the information was equally applicable to small business owners. With a little editing, this material I’ve written and gathered over the years will also be useful to you.

Summer is a great time to tackle these kinds of projects. Direct marketing expert Dan Kennedy says there is really nothing new under the sun – but he offers some useful tips to give you new perspective on the old. Try these to see how much double duty you can do.

1. If you can’t change the product, change the package.
2. Make it bigger.
3. Make it smaller.
4. Add to it.
5. Subtract from it.
6. Do it faster.
7. Do it slower.
8. Do it cheaper.
9. Do it more expensively.

 

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:  Sherri Garrity is the Chief Corporate Fugitive and creator of the Five Keys Success System for ex-corporate employees and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to break free from the confines of their corporate experience and  unlock their business potential for greater  personal freedom and prosperity. The Corporate Fugitive system demystifies the business of setting up, managing, marketing and growing a successful entrepreneurial adventure. Visit www.corporatefugitive.com for free tips on how to unlock the business in you.