If you are a small business owner, probably, your main problem is how to stand out in the market. 

You are more likely selling something that a hundred if not thousands of people are already selling.

Are you baking a cookie? Well, there are 100 cookie bakers in your city alone - that's for sure. 

Oh you are selling jewelry? How many jewelry makers in Manila alone? You will be competing to thousands of them. 

 

If you do not have strategies in place in order to differentiate yourself from your competitors, you will be left with no choice but to sell really low in order to break into the market or get any clients. 

In our community of small business owners, we always tell them that lowering your price should be your LAST marketing strategy. 

HOW DO YOU STANDOUT

To make it simple for you, I'll share one strategy you can apply as early as tomorrow. We call this - cross creativity. 

Cross creativity is crossing two saturated market to create a "new market" one that is unexplored, one that you can dominate. 

You don't compete where there is too much noise already. 

Let me show you how other brands use this strategy:

 

This is a travel agency crossing TRAVEL and FITNESS. Instead of just selling a trip to Ibiza, they are selling a YOGA Retreat. It expands their market tremendously and it creates an added value - they can increase their prices than the usual rate for a trip to Ibiza.

 

 This is Tsutaya, a bookstore chain that crosses BOOK X COFFEE.  It attracts two markets - coffee lovers and book lovers. This concept also increases the stay of their customers and therefore, increases their purchases. 

HOW DOES IT APPLY TO SMALL BUSINESS

Crossing an industry will definitely help a lot of small businesses to get out of an already saturated industry. We helped a lot of our mentorship participants to do so.

Let me make an example of Ms. Nyree, instead of competing in the saturated resin industry, she crossed it to shoes! Now she can service the fashionista lovers too. 

 

HOW CAN YOU START THE PROCESS

The thing is, you can't simply cross an industry - it must be related to your current one and of course, the second industry needs to service your target audience still. 

You can do this by answering the WHAT-WHO-WHY AND WHAT ALSO SHEET. 

So, first, think of your audience, then think of why they buy your product followed by thinking of what else can you offer to them in order to achieve their initial goal of buying from you.  

Let me make an example of Dana. 

Dana joined our mentorship program. She's a dried flower artist - a very saturated market. 

In our consultation, we realized that a lot of her customers are buying her arrangement because they wanna design their home. From there, we were thinking, what else can Dana offer to add value to her product. 

After days of brainstorming, we came up with a HOME STYLING concept. Her clients will consult with her on how to style their home based on a concept or a feeling - homey, relaxing, upbeat, cafe-like etc. 

And then, she can of course sell her flowers as part of that home style package. What's good here is, Dana's husband is an interior designer and furniture maker. She can upsell to her future clients - refer her husbands furniture etc. 

With this, she tremendously increased her market size and she definitely can increase the price of her flower arrangement. She is no longer just selling dried flower arrangement - she is selling home styling.  

 

IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE

If you want to learn more, we will have a discussion and a workshop on Saturday. This is free for the first 15-20 minutes. But, if you want to access the whole class, get a copy of the recording and a copy of the sheet, then consider joining paid community. We have 8 classes every week where you can learn more about business development, branding and marketing for small business owners. 

 

IN ORDER TO JOIN FOR FREE

  • SCREENSHOT THIS BLOG and tag us on Instagram: harry_kpa, kamilas4amart and kamilas4am_kpa

 

 

 

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