My upcoming book, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets, which I’m writing while you watch on this site and in my daily emails!
Rainmaker! It’s Friday! Which means another week is done. What have you done this week to move your business forward? What are you planning for next week?
Today’s chapter from the book I’m writing as you watch reveals five specific things you can do to maximize the competitive advantage your business has in the marketplace…
And the unifying strategy behind them.
This may sound a little familiar for regular readers of Breakthrough Marketing Secrets, but that’s good! You should read and reread these concepts explored from different angles until they’re embedded deep into your subconscious for you to use automatically when they are needed.
Alright, that’s all the intro we need, here’s the chapter on Jay Abraham’s Strategy of Preeminence, and five steps for applying it in your business to achieve maximum competitive advantage!
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Like the distinction between customers and clients, this chapter — all the way up to its title — comes from Jay Abraham. The way we reach great heights is to stand on the shoulders of giants. A great idea, stolen, is still a great idea.
The Strategy of Preeminence is perhaps the biggest, most important mindset shift you can make as a marketer, salesperson, or business owner. And, as you read, you’ll realize that you’ve already caught glimpses of this strategy in the concepts we’ve covered up through this point.
What is a preeminent business?
The word preeminent means “surpassing all others.”
A preeminent business is not defined by being the biggest or most profitable business in its niche or business category, but it will often become so.
Rather, a preeminent business outshines all others in its category in the impression it leaves on the customers. It is seen as the business that delivers the best experience. It is the one that you feel most confident in buying from. It is the one that holds its clients in the highest esteem — that has their best interests at heart.
A preeminent business is the thought-leader in the industry. It educates most — bringing the most powerful mix of best practices and new ideas. It is the business that competitors seek to emulate. It is the business that others most want to partner with, to align themselves with.
If there is a public leader at the forefront of the preeminent business (and there often is), this leader is seen as the guru or the expert of the industry. Their books are “the bible” of the industry. Their word is gospel.
The preeminent business is held up as the ideal.
And as a result, the preeminent business is the one most likely to be talked about. Clients and customers are most likely to refer others to the preeminent business. The preeminent business becomes a magnet to the money flowing into the industry — and often out-paces all others in growth and success.
Becoming a preeminent business does not require you to be the biggest or most powerful in your industry. But by becoming the preeminent business, your chance of becoming the biggest and most powerful is nearly 100%.
In short, if you want to achieve maximum success with your business, you want to create the preeminent business in your niche or business category.
How can you turn your business into a preeminent business?
If you want to reap the rewards of having a preeminent business, you will have to work for it. It won’t be easy. But the return on investment for this work will be astronomical.
Everything you do to apply Breakthrough Marketing Secrets in your business will be leading you in the right direction. However, I’ve set out five specific steps here that will take you a long way, even if you do nothing else.
1. You must value service above all else.
This goes back to our discussion of customers versus clients. Are you in business to maximize the value of each transaction? Or are you in business to deliver maximize value to those individuals you come in contact with?
By “service,” I don’t specifically mean services delivered, or your customer service department. It encompasses those things, but is much bigger than that.
It’s about creating your entire organization to be in service to your clients and customers. It’s about putting your customer first, not yourself.
When every fiber of your being and business operate from this perspective, it’s hard NOT to become the preeminent business.
2. Deliver an extraordinary experience. Over-deliver.
If you want to be the preeminent business in your niche, your deliverables can’t fall short. Your client’s experience of doing business with you must be remarkable. By this, I’m borrowing Seth Godin’s definition, that it must be a business that’s literally remark-able — worth talking about.
When the purchase of products or services from your business gives the customer an extraordinary experience and then some, it’s hard not to be talked about.
So do everything the other businesses in your niche do to serve clients, and take it one step further. When you’re approaching your business from an attitude of service, this is completely natural.
And yet, it’s so rare today that it will position you as preeminent.
3. Become the top source of education in your niche.
It’s difficult to be the preeminent business in your niche without providing education. Write. Speak. Do everything you can to communicate with customers.
What should you communicate?
Well, the number one thing your customer wants in making a purchase is to make sure they’re making the right purchase decision. This is why reviews have become so popular on e-commerce sites.
Communicate the answers to a potential buyer’s questions, regarding your product or service.
Most folks go into a purchase not having a clear set of buying criteria. Create the buying criteria. And position it in such a way that it’s real — where it’s possible to use your buying criteria and choose a competitor over you.
Give reasons why a customer would make certain decisions on products or features. Empower them with the information they need to make smart decisions. Highlight your competitors’ strengths, and your own weaknesses.
Get inside the mind of your customers, and teach them what they need to know to be successful. Before they do business with you. While they’re doing business with you. And after they’ve done business with you.
Speak person-to-person. Focus on being helpful. Point them toward opportunities. Provide solutions before they spend a penny with you.
The more education you do, the better.
4. Be somebody.
Have you ever seen a movie and insisted that the headline celebrity they got to play the leading role should have been replaced with a better, less-famous actor? And yet, those headline celebrities continue to get the great roles — with excessively large paychecks to boot?
The reason this happens — and will continue to happen — is that “who” is often a bigger decider in buying decisions than “what.”
I’ll talk more about this in a later chapter. So I won’t go into too much detail here. However I want to underscore this simple fact. Big personalities, with big public personas, are incredibly attractive to money. Not just in Hollywood, but in the business world, too.
Look at who gets constant air time. Watch what they do. Take notes, learn from them, and apply them in your business and in your niche.
You don’t have to be a big public celebrity to have a preeminent business in your niche. But you should be a celebrity within your niche.
5. Communicate often.
Preeminent businesses stay on top of their entire industry’s mind, by design.
They dominate media. First, the media of direct communication with their customers. Direct email. Direct mail. Social media. And second, the public media. Trade journals. Industry publications. Newspapers. Magazines. TV.
Your goal should be to stay in front of your customers and prospects as much as possible. Do so with helpful, educational content (see #3). Don’t be a pest. But be ever-present.
Many folks worry that they will be offensive if they send too many emails, or other communications. You may, if what you send is irrelevant, boring, or offensive in some way. However, if everything you send is in service to the recipient, it will welcomed with open arms.
In reference to all communications — and we’ll come back to this later — it can’t be too long or too much, it can only be too boring or too irrelevant.
I can think of many great marketers that send interesting, relevant communications multiple times a week — even daily. And because they are interesting and relevant, I’m happy to receive them. So are their tens- and even hundreds-of-thousands of other customers.
If you want to be the preeminent business in your niche, you must unabashedly put yourself in front of your market often, with helpful communications relevant to your business.
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Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
Editor, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets
