The holiday season is one rich with tradition. Like you, some I enjoy and several I wonder why I continue to do them. Handles Messiah is off my list now as is the Nut Cracker. I’ve done them once each and that was enough tradition. Christmas Carol, I enjoy and am happy to have that as an every other year tradition.
During a recent flight to LA, I had a few hours and reflected on some other traditions: When I get voicemail, why does the person have to tell me it’s their voice mail? Tradition. Why do they tell me to leave a message after the beep? Tradition. We’re just used to doing it because we always have. It is the same reason we go shopping and tell the person who is eager to help and improve our shopping experience that we are “just shopping”.
It’s funny that we spend so much time, energy and money to differentiate oursevlves from the competition. Yet we are presented with many options every day that give us the opportunity to actually show we’re different. And most of them are free.
How do you answer the phone in your office? Why? How do you express your refund policy? What does that say about you? What about the look of your invoices, design of your email, look of your proposals, wording on your business card? They all say something about you and your business. Make it count.
I’ll bet you overlook the many little ways you can separate yourself from your competition. There are so many choices today. I have several dozen choices for lunch today, eight movies at the theatre, ten choices of bottled water, a dozen types of ice tea, fifty cell phone plans, etc.
Because of all this choice, we often resort to our own decision making traditions. Why? There is nothing remarkably different about the choices I am presented with.
It is to bad, really, because it only takes a little “extra” to become extraordinary.
So this holiday season, examine the traditions you have fallen into in your business. You’ll find changes big and small that will separate you from your competition. If you need any working capital to implement any of these changes, let me know and we’ll be happy to arrange that for you.
