How to make your creative business stand out in a crowded market

Some days it feels like everyone else does the same thing that you do. I don't know about you, but I feel like the business landscape is getting more complex. There's more and more options available for people. They have all these different ways that they can engage with content online. The internet is getting busier than ever, and there are messages coming at us on every platform all day long.

Trust me, as a marketer, I know at least a hundred marketers who I think are excellent at what they do, and at the same time, there's a reason that you're listening to me talk right now. It's because each of us brings something different to the table. We each have a different way that we practice marketing.

Today's episode is about how you differentiate in a crowded market and attract your own audience. You're going to notice a theme in today's episode and that theme is people, we talk a lot on this show about relationships. Differentiation for creative business owners is all about relationships, and when you're thinking about differentiating, I want you to think about three things. One, investing in people, two delivering an experience, and three, adapting fast.

I'm Lex Roman. I empower creative entrepreneurs to make smarter marketing bets, and you're tuned in to the Low Energy Leads Show

Before we get into today's episode, I want to make sure you know about my upcoming webinar with Pathfinder SEO on the impact of AI on SEO strategy. Whether you've relied on Google in your business or you offer SEO services to your clients, you're not going to want to miss what Pathfinder has to say about the changing landscape of SEO. It's free to join us Friday, October 27th at 10:00 AM Pacific, 1:00 PM Eastern.

Find the link to register in the show notes. As a small creative business, we're going to play differently than a big company. We're not going to buy out our competition. We're not going to copy what they're doing. Instead, we are going to rely on the things that we do best knowing our clients well, delivering exceptional experiences for them, and cultivating community around ourselves. Above all, you're going to operate people first, and that is something that will stand the test of time and ride through the waves of technological advances.

The first area we're going to look at when it comes to differentiation is investing in people. Now I'm putting people in four quadrants here we're going to talk about clients, partners, supporters, and your team. When I asked about the topic of this episode, Kristina Bartold-Sargota, who's been a guest on this show and is the CEO of the social snippet, she wrote on my LinkedIn saying authentic community over followers. That is the topic of Kristina's podcast. It is something that has proven successful in her business as a key differentiator, her investment in people and her community. Let's look at the four quadrants here that I laid out when it comes to clients, checking in with clients and keeping relationships up with your clients. Now, this seems like a basic thing that everyone's doing, assure you it is not, and the more that you invest in your clients, the more that they will be loyal to you and your business.

The more work that they will send your way, the more that they will come back to do additional projects with you. I can't tell you how many clients I have from past lives in businesses that I no longer operate doing things that I no longer offer who come back to me because I am the person that they still trust and they trust me to recommend someone else. So those investments in those relationships, they last a long time and when you operate in your business as a service provider where you actually in service to your clients, it shows, it stands out with them and they remember you for years to come. The simplest way to do this is to build in a check-in schedule, so we often focus on our clients when we're onboarding or offboarding them. We're working with them directly, but one of the things that we often miss is the opportunity to keep up with our clients year round.

Now, I'm not saying that you have to keep up with every client one-on-one, though you can obviously do that. There's also ways to do this as a group. One of my favorite ways that I've seen this happen is when I was working for an agency called Carbon Five in San Francisco, carbon five used to do a quarterly mixer with clients at our office, and it was really simple. We would just send out an invitation to everyone on our client list forever, like the entire client list ever, and they would be invited to our office for drinks. Now, they would often bring referrals to those parties. They would come back and say, oh, I have a new project for you. It was an amazing relationship mentor, a very simple one and a scalable one, but it showed that we cared about our clients and that we were continuing to invest in our relationships with them.

The second quadrant here is your partners. You want to amplify with your partners. Seeking referral Partners is great. We've talked about that a little bit on this show. We're going to keep talking about that because referral partners are really important for service-based business owners, but you really want to think about this beyond the transactions you're having with these referral partners and you want to think about how can I amplify my partners? I'll give you an example of this from Chris Lamb. Chris is a fractional CMO and she has been an amazing partner to me and for women in small business month. Chris has decided that she's amplifying her partners all month on LinkedIn. She's put together graphics, she's tagging everyone, and it's just a selfless thing that she's doing to platform people to amplify our work, to connect us to each other. It is an amazing expression of Chris's real value, which is that she is here to support other people and it is the way that she lives.

It is the way that she posts it is emblematic of working with Chris in any capacity. As a result, it makes those of us who work with her keep our eyes open for ways that we can work with her and it keeps us in touch with her more frequently than we would be. She's always looking for these opportunities to bring us together and she's thinking, how can I amplify my partners? One of the things I think about when it comes to partners is who has offered value already in my business and how can I give back to them? What are some ways that I can give back to them? Some of the things that I'm always thinking about are people that I can connect them to ways that I can offer strategic introductions in their business. I'm always trying to find ways to amplify them, so looking out for those opportunities and investing in those people who are already investing in you goes a long way and it builds, it compounds over time.

The third quadrant here when it comes to people is showing gratitude to your supporters. Supporters come in all different flavors, and I think of this as people who are cheering you on very vocally cheering you on who may or may not be buyers of your business. They may or may not be partners. They may not end up being clients, so you may not know exactly what it is that their relationship is that you're going to have with them. Showing gratitude for that support means a lot to people. Even something as simple as a reply to an email or reply to a comment. When you go out of your way to show gratitude to the people that are going out of their way to support you, it means a lot and that is actually how you build your community. They're already responding to something that you're doing, so they're helping you out by commenting on something, by sharing something that you're doing by just encouraging you and you want to acknowledge that it's really important that you acknowledge that and that you cement those relationships and you consider, how can I bring these people closer to the fold?

Recently, I was talking with Lucy Newell about this. Lucy is a marketer and a web designer. She owns Ravens Point Marketing and Lucy's had an amazing time with her support network. One of the things she's done is she started sending flowers as a sign of her gratitude, and she mentioned to me that they've been really well received sending flowers. Again, it seems so small, it's a really modest expense for most of us, but it goes a long way towards expressing your appreciation for the support that you are being given. There's all kinds of ways that you can show your gratitude. There's a website called thanks.com that I love, where you can send really simple and cheap gift certificates and gifts and things like that that go a long way. You can also use something like NAC and send gift boxes. It doesn't actually matter if there's an actual gift or transaction happening.

What does matter is that you take the time to show your gratitude to the people that are supporting your business and encouraging you along the way. The fourth quadrant here is empowering your team if you have anyone working for you, making sure that they feel like they're actually a part of your team. It's critically important. Many of us are hiring freelancers or fractional workers, and those people are not necessarily actually fully on our team, but the more that they feel a part of your organization, the more that they feel valued, the more they feel appreciated and empowered, the farther they're going to take that in your business, the more that's going to come through in your experience in your marketing, in every aspect of the way that your business works, especially if your team is client facing, they become a huge part of your differentiator and so you don't want to forget about them and keep your lens only on your clients.

Making sure your team is taken care of is fundamental to true hospitality and true service. I invite you to think about all the people that are coming in and out of your business or whether or not they fit into these four quadrants of clients, partners, supporters, and team. They may not. You may have extra quadrants that you want to add, but think about who are these people coming in and out of my business and in what ways can I invest in them? How can I support them? The more that you do that, the deeper those relationships go, the more they pay you back, the more differentiated you are with all of the people that you have spent time with. Building no like and trust. This brings us to the sponsor of today's episode. Are you early stage in your business and you're getting overwhelmed with all the steps that it takes to get it off the ground? Introducing, starting a business, simplified the podcast that's here to help Susie Rains. Your host will guide you through the transition step-by-step from success stories to valuable business tips. She's got it all covered. Tune in now on your favorite podcast platform and simplify starting a business.

The second thing we're going to look at when it comes to differentiation is delivering an experience. How you deliver matters more than what you deliver. I learned this lesson early on in my agency days because I started to notice that when clients had a good time on a project, they cared actually a lot less about the outcome, so I went in as a young whippersnapper. I was really keen on getting people results. I remained keen on getting people results. However, I noticed that projects that were challenging to work on where the team didn't have a great dynamic, even if the result was great, people left sort of dissatisfied and on the converse, even if the project flopped and didn't get the market that it was designed to get, if the client had a good time, they were happy. This was a really good lesson to learn and it taught me a lot about client experience.

Inside service companies, people are generally coming to you for an outcome, but they also want to enjoy their time working with you. They want to feel valued, they want to feel heard, they want to have a good time. Work is stressful. Life is stressful when you make things easy and fun. They appreciate that Jana Carlson of Studio Rocket Web Design knows this well. Jana shared with me that she differentiates her business on the ease of the web design process, sharing that they make the web design process simple and efficient with a high touch, clear, and friendly process. When your clients have a good time, they're that much more thrilled with the results of your work and they remember the experience that they had. We talk a lot about how people remember experiences more than belongings. The same thing is true of your projects. They remember what it was like working with you.

They remember the feeling that you gave them when you were working together. I think of delivering an experience as being a host. It's sort of a hospitality practice, right? It's like how do I make people feel welcomed and heard and a sense of belonging? How do I make them feel like I have their back, like I'm listening to them like I'm paying attention to the things that they want to get out of this? There's a few things to consider when it comes to delivering an experience. You want to start by looking at your onboarding. How are you welcoming clients into your business? Are there things that you can do to stand out there? The ways that you communicate things, the ways that you them, the ways that you prep them for your work together. This can include sharing guides. It can include email prep in advance of a service.

It can include videos or even live sessions. You want to think about your client experience as a journey and you want to walk your clients through every moment so that they feel successful and prepared for the next thing to come, and by the way, the more that you do this in your business, the better those projects go because your clients feel like you have their back. They feel like you are organized and in control and they can relax and let you drive the process. Some things to look at in onboarding include any prep work you need them to do in advance that helps set you up for success. Any terminology that you use that they should become familiar with, any tools that you're going to use that they should sign up for or get acclimated with and sharing things like the schedule deadlines, deliverables, and expectations in advance.

Offboarding is equally important. Web designer Christy Price gave an excellent talk on client offboarding at Squarespace's Circle Day this year. She shared that online and she talks through all the different ways that you want to leave someone with the best impression of your time together. Some of the things that she points out are ways to leave people with documentation, awareness of how they can get their questions answered. You can also think about things like email communication. Do you want to check in with folks as you're wrapping up a project? I used to do an email offboarding sequence that I would have clients run through that would automatically check in with them and encourage them to schedule time with me for follow-up appointments. I personally like to offboard by putting time in the calendar to connect with people because I'm continuously connecting with clients whether or not they're still paying me or working with me.

They're valuable to keep in touch with, and so I'm always trying to offboard with another touch point and not just say goodbye, but say, I'll see you soon. Another thing that you can do in offboarding is ask for that feedback. You can either ask for it live or in something like a survey and you can incorporate that in future projects. That brings us to the idea of offering continuous value. You really want to think about all of your relationships and especially relationships with your clients as a continuous value loop. These are not just a moment in time. These are people that you are continually offering value to, so whether you're just keeping them on your email list and sharing continuous ways that they can get more value and tips and advice from you, whether you're highlighting your success together and amplifying them, whether you're inviting them to something or even whether you're offering an additional service, an aftercare service, a maintenance package, you want to think about how can I continue to add value to my clients' lives?

What are the ways that we could continue to work together and if not work together? What are the ways that we should continue to stay in touch? How can I make this easy to stay in touch with me? Again, you can do that on a one-on-one basis. You can also do it at scale. You can think about communities. Do I want to invite my clients into a community? I'm thinking about hosting a client holiday mixer. Most business owners treat people as transactions, so it's a real big differentiator when you treat people as people and you actually look out for them and continue to try to connect with them, keeping up with your clients, adding value in their lives, offering aftercare support, thinking about how you can continually be of value to them. How can they grow with you? How can you grow with them? That's what makes a standout service provider.

The third thing when it comes to differentiating and standing up for the crowd is your ability to adapt fast. A lot of business owners out there are just copying others, and if you are able to be an original and you are adapting quickly with information from the market, information from your customers, information from technological advances, recent world events, then you are always going to be ahead of your competition. It begins with listening deeply as content creator. Jasmine Jae says, more depth and intention over attention. I love Jay's sentiment here because I think that we spend a lot of time trying to get eyeballs and ears as if we are Netflix and Spotify and all of these larger corporations that are just stealing our time and money. In creative businesses though, it's really much more about how we relate to others, so when we listen deeply, we hear more, we can act on things and adapt more quickly to gaps in our own work gaps, in our business, gaps in our experience, gaps in our results.

When I used to do growth projects for founders in Silicon Valley, one of the first things I would do was go on a listening tour with customers and listen for the things that were wrong with the business. It is so much faster to adapt your business when you can hear directly from the people that are using the thing that you're offering, the people that are using your product or service. That listening work sounds kind of abstract, but it is honestly some of the fastest learning that you can do and it will empower you to adapt more quickly. It is also something that is unique to small businesses. Larger businesses do not do this well. They cannot wrap their arms around their audience the way that we can, and so they really get to see such a small slice of what's going on. People don't trust big businesses the way that they trust small businesses, and you and I have an opportunity to really get to know people and to adapt to their changing needs.

Right alongside that, we've got to know what's working When it comes to standing out and being different. We want to make sure that we understand what we're actually really good at. What are we delivering well? What do people most appreciate about us? What makes us unique? How do our clients see us? Why do our partners recommend us? Why are our supporters interested in us? Why is our team working for us, right? So what are we good at? Understanding that can help you clarify where you can build more, where you can double down, how you can message around those things to help people understand your value faster. There may be things that you're good at that you think you're good at, and other people sort of sweep under the rug, and then there might be other things that people say, well, now you're really good at this, and it might not be something that you even thought was special.

Understanding what's working and specifically understanding what's working through the lens of your clients and your community is key to out how you should present yourself. How do you make yourself stand out? You have to see it through their eyes because you're going to present it to other people who are going to see it more like how they see it than how you see it. That thing that they understand to be different and unique about you, the thing that they appreciate about you. It's often very small. It's often a very concrete thing, and it's not usually the full breadth of who you are as a person or even what your business is capable of doing. It is often something that is much smaller than the way that you would portray your mission, vision, values, but you've got to look out for those clues about what is working, whether you're looking for data about a specific campaign, a specific piece of copy, specific email that lands with people or you're listening for the quotes and things that they're saying.

In conversations, in sales calls, in reviews and case studies, once you're clear on what is working, you can also very easily identify your gaps and your ability to adapt quickly and fix those gaps again, is a huge differentiator. Businesses that don't change, don't succeed. Paying attention for those gaps and being able to nimbly address them, improves your experience, your results, and as such, it improves your customer loyalty. It improves your growth because people want to come back and work with you because they know that you're paying attention. If you've ever been to a restaurant and you had a bad experience there, you know what it's like to talk to the manager, and you know what it's like when a manager doesn't care about your experience at the restaurant. You know what it's like when they do care. Which restaurant are you more likely to give another chance to the one that didn't care and says goodbye, or the one that gave you a coupon and says, please come back and help us make it right?

Your curiosity about those gaps, your interest in digging into them, in patching them and improving them, it's what sets you apart from your competition because not all businesses improve those gaps. Many businesses operate with big holes for years, and so your ability to close those actually really sets you apart. Centering people in your business is a unique differentiator that is hilariously or perhaps sadly hard to copy. Most of us don't do it, and if you do do it, you will not only stand out in terms of your level of service, but you will improve your operations far faster than any other business owner in your realm because you will be listening and responding to your clients, your community, and your team. The only thing that's certain is uncertainty, and as entrepreneurs, we've got to learn how to weather change. If you're looking for support as you navigate these wild waters of entrepreneurship, you should really check out my program for creative entrepreneurs called Growth Trackers Inside our community, you'll train up on how to test track, tune your marketing and sales with evidence from your buyers.

You'll embrace new techniques and you'll map out how exactly it applies to your business. Growthtrackers is for people who like moving fast and who hate wasting time. Get your guest pass at joingrowthtrackers.com and check out my playlist of Growthtrackers live, where you can get a taste of what we do in our live sessions. I hope you'll come back next week. I'm going to do a little bit of a Halloween episode about how I was wrong about my ideal clients when I started this business. We're going to talk about some of the risky mistakes I made early and how I fixed them. Until next time, keep your energy low until the value will be high.