Stand Out From The Competition

Once upon a time, I met an old gentleman named Sam who ran a small general store in a very rural (more like country) town. He did a very good business since he was the only store around for miles. He was quite content since he owned the store and ran it successfully for many years, and his customers were very satisfied. I had a chance to ride through this little town once every year or so and every time I did, my old friend Sam was working away in his little store.

One time as I drove through town I couldn't help but notice that Sam had himself a bit of some competition - quite a bit in fact. A huge department store opened up right next to Sam's little general store. In fact, it was almost right on top of him. So I stopped in to see how Sam was doing. Sam told me that although he lost some business, he was still hanging in there because he had a lot of loyal customers who kept coming back. So, I bid him farewell and continued on my journey. Yet, I couldn't help but worry about Sam since I knew how much this sort of thing could hurt a business. But if he wasn't too worried, then I figured I shouldn't worry either.

Well, that's what I thought until a year later when I drove through town again and saw that another large department store had opened up on the other side of Sam's store. Now he was totally surrounded by two huge, full-service department stores. He looked like the middle of an Oreo cookie. Of course I stopped in to see how Sam was doing. This time, Sam was not doing well at all. He said that these two new stores carried everything Sam offered, plus a hundred times more, and all at department store discounts. Even his long-time loyal customers told him that they regrettably couldn't continue shopping at his little store. He was really down and out and I figured that this was the last time I'd see poor old Sam.

Again, I was wrong. Several months later I had the opportunity to drive through that small town again and would have bet my life that Sam's store was gone. I couldn't have been more wrong. Not only was his store still there and open, but a long line of people were waiting outside to get in. I couldn't believe it. It wasn't until I looked up that I realized what had happened. On the top of Sam's little general store, that was surrounded by two huge department stores, was a very large sign that simply read "Main Entrance". Sam was a genius. He learned to survive in a world of tough competition by standing out.

How are you standing out to your customers? Do they see you as someone who can provide them with a unique solution or service? Are you doing enough to ensure prospects look at you as a business that can uniquely solve their specific problems? Are your customers totally loyal to you, and not your competitors? In today's fiercely competitive market place we need to provide unique benefits to our prospects and customers. I'm not saying we need better ad slogans or marketing pitches that are more clever than our competitor's. Those gimmicks don't address our customers' real concerns. They just get them to the door, at best. I mean true added value that makes doing business with us a positive experience that customers will tell their friends about.

So, remember the next time when it seems your competitors are running rings around your business, you have to dig deep down inside and find the unique attributes that will make you unique, cause your customers to keep coming back, and develop a very loyal customer base. Make YOUR business the Main Entrance!

Where Do You Get Your Best Prospects?

Are the Yellow Pages REALLY effective in getting you qualified leads? Are you tired of renting expensive mailing lists that are updated infrequently with contacts who are no longer with the company or have incorrect information? Are you trying to run marketing campaigns but just can't seem to find a good database of leads that is kept up-to-date, allows you to search by many business criteria, and is affordable? If you said "Yes" to any of these questions, then you need to take a look at idEXEC. 

The idEXEC team specializes in researching and providing their industry leading global business-to-business contact database of executive decision-makers at the world's most important public, private, non-profit, and government organizations. idEXEC currently tracks 2,000,000 people at 900,000 organizations in 172 countries. These statistics are refreshed on a daily basis due to the ongoing idEXEC research process where they make over 20,000 updates per week. Records are updated continuously with changes posted immediately online.

idEXEC Online is a complete web-based solution that enables powerful targeting capabilities and real time access to the idEXEC database. Powerful custom search capabilities allow immediate download of your most important prospects, whether it’s a single record lookup or hundreds of thousands. You can accomplish searches by various groups of detailed criteria, as well as lookups by specific company or executive names. The data is augmented by: competitor profiles, corporate parent and subsidiary linkage information, detailed financial reports, industry news, executive biographies and executive compensation. Information is delivered online with real-time updating, enabling users to implement strategic marketing and sales initiatives with precision and ease with the most current information available. No special software is required - only a standard Internet browser and Internet access will allow your company to take advantage of the power of idEXEC.

If you are a sales, marketing, business development, or corporate intelligence professional requiring immediate access to accurate information on companies, their corporate linkages, their board members, and their executive decision-makers around the globe, then contact us so we can show you how to successfully and affordably obtain leads for a profitable marketing and sales campaign.

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