Gina Branch

You are in business for yourself. That is, you may own your own business, or you may be associated with another company as an employee, a partner or an independent contractor. Your working agreement or arrangement doesn’t really matter.
 
The important thing to realize is that no matter what the arrangement or situation you presently find yourself in, you are really working for yourself. If you work by commission, for example, the sales you make are not only putting dollars in your employer’s pocket, they are putting dollars into your own pocket as well. The more you sell, the more you make.
 
Just consider yourself as a business that prospers or falters financially by the amount of commission dollars you generate. The point is, even though you may be working for, or are associated with another company, you are really working for yourself to increase the amount of money you earn for you.

Three Keys for Success

It’s important to realize that your success in whatever you do in business, or in life for that matter, will always be determined by three things:

1. The need or demand for what you do,
2. Your ability to do it, and
3. The difficulty in replacing you.

In other words, how valuable are you and the service you perform to other people? To illustrate this point, let’s apply our three step formula to the job of an elevator operator. In today’s world of push¬button, self operated elevators, how much need is there for the job he or she performs?
 
Most people are quite capable of operating an elevator themselves. It doesn’t take much knowledge or training, so an operator can be replaced without much difficulty. As a result, elevator operators, if you can even find one, are not paid much.

Now, contrast the elevator operator and the money he or she commands with that of a professional major league baseball player. Specifically a player that is good at batting.
 
What is the need for what they do? A look at attendance figures for baseball games will show that more than just a few fans are interested in watching what they do. So the need obviously is great.
 
How about the batter’s ability to do what he does? Sports analysts say that the action of hitting a ball moving toward you at over 90 miles per hour is the single most difficult movement in sports.
 
In the game of basketball, the target (the hoop) doesn’t move. Same in golf. While the ball moves, the hole, or goal, remains stationary. In football, there are 11 teammates all with a common goal of advancing the ball. But in baseball, it’s the batter alone trying to hit a small, 90 mph target with his bat. So it stands to reason then that the better or more often a batter can hit the ball, the more he or she will be compensated.
 
Now, what about the difficulty in replacing a good batter? When only the best in the world can hit the target less than a third of the time, and most of the other players are successful far less than that, it doesn’t take long to realize why the best batters are among the highest money¬makers in the world.

Obtaining Superior Rewards

Now how about you? It’s been said that you can tell how professional a person is by the size of their income at the end of the year.
 
And you can tell exactly how valuable the service you perform is by how much people are willing to pay you for it. If you do the same job that everybody else does, and do it no better than the way they do it, you can’t expect to earn more money or be considered any more valuable than those other people.
 
You see, the market, by nature, will pay superior rewards only for superior goods and services. It will pay average rewards for average goods and services, and it will see that inferior rewards are paid for inferior goods and services.
 
In other words, you will be rewarded in direct proportion to the value you provide your customers. It’s inescapable. That’s the law of nature.
 
Now, if the products and services you sell or provide are similar in coverage and price to everyone else’s (and most of them are), then the difference between you and other people in your position has to be in the type and amount of personal service you provide your customers and clients.
 
This then has to be the area you excel in – it becomes your competitive edge.

As a business person, it is imperative for you to understand that only 35% of the reason people buy the products or services you offer is for the actual product or service itself.

The other 65% of the reason they buy is for what you can do or provide beyond the product or service, and what that product or service does for the customer.

In other words, if you are trying to sell your customers and prospects products and services, you are wasting your time. They are only 35% interested in products and services.

But they are 65% interested in the benefits of having you involved.

You see, chances are good that your customers and prospects can buy the same product or service (or at least comparable ones) from any one of several of your competitors.

And with that product or service, your competitor may offer a number of additional advantages as well.

They may have a lower price, better quality product, some added bonuses or extra services, a location that’s more convenient, or a payment plan that fits their budget better.

In today’s tough, competitive market, it’s difficult to compete on price or product. You may be able to command a certain advantage for a period of time because you have a lower price than your competitors, but we both know that it will be short-lived.

The truth is you will never be able to maintain a competitive position in the marketplace – long-term – because of the prices you charge or the products you provide.

It’ll just be a matter of time before either one of your competitors lowers prices or duplicates (or even betters) your product, or you raise your prices because you no longer have the necessary margins to justify your prices.

But there’s one thing your customers can’t get from any of your competitors. And that’s you, your empathy, your problem solving expertise, and your knowledge and commitment to service that you bring to his or her unique situation.