8 Tips To Stand Out In A Crowded Market

my name is emily finkelstein and i'm the
ceo of venture expert advisors and
really wanted to thank all of you for
taking the time out of your busy
schedules in order to join me for
today's topic
eight tips for businesses to stand out
in a crowded market a way to help you
stand out above the noise so i'd love to
keep this presentation as interactive as
we possibly can so please feel free to
ask questions along the way just type
them into the chat and i'll do my best
to address them as we go i'll also leave
a little bit of time at the end if there
are still any outstanding questions or
comments
but let's get started
so i thought i'd start by sharing a
little bit about my background i
recently started venture expert advisors
based upon my experience as a founder of
multiple tech ventures ones that i own
personally without taking capital
outside capital coupled with my
experience of working for one of the
biggest tech giants google which we're
all familiar with
for a little insight venture expert
advisors is an executive consulting firm
that specializes in high growth strategy
we have a group of industry experts and
executives to help small to medium-sized
businesses grow smarter start up to
scale up we help leaders at growing
companies learn how to navigate from
launch to exit we provide project-based
work talent acquisition capital funding
digital marketing hr audit and
compliance m a coaching and strategy
services along with many more options
and things
we work as your partner in growing your
business by putting together a 360
degree approach to helping you and your
team succeed
each client experience starts with me
i work with the founders listens to
their pain points and goals and and
bringing our team of 30 subject matter
experts together to the table to help
them through personal uh projects
project-based work executive coaching
scenarios and even mental health needs
we have some incredible partnerships for
our clients
which they can take advantage of by
partnering with us as well
the whole purpose of what we do stems
from my wish from when i was growing and
scaling my past ventures it would have
saved me a lot of time energy and money
if i had a dedicated team who i can lean
on in order to help our business
grow in scale so alas venture expert
advisors was born
so topics on the agenda for today i'd
like to highlight a few of them here
we're gonna go through knowing uh what
you have to offer
how to have a solid identity build real
relationships
knowing your competition
what you should be avoiding how you can
get creative with your marketing
outsmarting your competition and then
ultimately finding the right team to
help you do so
so number one
know what you have to offer and to whom
you want to offer it know exactly
how your product or service can help
your customer and then build messaging
around that so for starters you know
craft a simple message this could be a
positioning or value statement in the
beginning so that people start to learn
more about your company and its mission
this is becoming more and more important
these days is consumers are really into
the essence of the brand behind the
company just as much as they might be
into what you have to offer or what
you're selling
once the business is a bit more
established it's important to understand
your key target audience and clients
what are you helping them solve and what
value do they get by working with you or
purchasing your product
then it's important to get specific and
target
your audience based upon where they are
in the buying or decision making process
take the time to step into the shoes of
your clients or prospects what are they
looking for at the moment you are
reaching out to them how can you help
them achieve their goals with minimal
time and effort on their part
two
have a solid identity that will last you
through the noise don't try to be
everything to everyone be really good at
one thing and know your audience really
well
as example to this tip with one of my
ventures we build we built a privately
branded online auction platform for
auctioneers we were not the first in the
market but we didn't just do what other
competition did either yes our
technology was state-of-the-art and
provided an online bidding platform for
those that could not be in attendance
live bidders could log in listen and
watch the live auction as well as been
live on the items of interest but what
made our company stand out from the rest
was the fact that we offer a privately
branded system to our clients where they
could control the entire bidding
validation process to the entire look
and feel of their own branded system
where events were being broadcasted on
this meant that each client was offered
a privately branded system where they
had to access where they had access into
all their data and they owned and
controlled every aspect of it whereas
most of the other providers in
competition offered a portal branded
system where they had access into all of
the data that was being shed through
their system uh and that they owned and
controlled not vice versa
so in this instance the auction house
did not have control over their bidders
and their individual marketing dollars
were being spent to drive traffic not
only to their auction but to their
competitors auction as well
this is how we created a solid identity
through the marketplace and how our
reputation stood out to prospects and
clients for truly wanting what was best
for them in the end and that had to do
with allowing our clients to have the
utmost control of their privacy their
security and their brand identity
we gave our clients the power to control
their own bidders and bitter data
empowering them to grow their businesses
and ultimately not their competitors
so
you may not sure be or understand sort
of what is your one thing that's why
it's so important to channel your
customers asking the questions what
first attracted them to their business
what other businesses were they
considering during the purchasing phase
and what ultimately made them choose to
decide to go with you
these questions are so key for you to
gain the knowledge and insight into what
is working and what things you can
improve upon as you reach out to new
prospects
you can ask these questions over a phone
in an email or even in a survey you know
i actually prefer the survey method
because then you can see a graphical
representation of all the data and i'm
pretty visual
so
but the truth of the matter is any way
that you collect this feedback is well
worth your time and energy
number three build relationships with
your audience you know 82 percent of
small business owners prefer to meet
their with their audience in person
so start with the people that you know
stay in touch with your audience
and meet with your audience face to face
as much as you can i believe it's so
important especially when you're a new
business yes of course you need to look
at the data study your traffic
understand your target audience but it's
also just important to continue to build
relationships and a lot of time
uh that stems from your own personal
network one thing we're doing as a
company as we navigate this new remote
hybrid work on normal is we're hosting
coffee and conversations with local
companies in person and non-local
companies via zoom we think it's so
important to meet face-to-face to
establish a rapport get to know each
other on more of a human level
i'm also happy to connect with fellow
members of the community at a local
coffee shop so let me know this if this
is of interest to you after the
presentation and we can definitely set
something up
four know your competition and know what
they're doing and ultimately do it
better
understand how you compete on your
product your service and on price
it's so important to do your research on
your competition and to understand what
they might be doing better or worse than
you
then think about how you can continue to
set yourselves apart maybe it's your
product service or price but maybe it's
not maybe it's your partnerships or your
relationships i also think it's so
important to have a good rapport with
your competition
having an open dialogue allows you to
gain insight and knowledge that you
might not get or accurately get
otherwise
also there may be instances where you
might not even be in direct competition
with what you think is your competition
so
make sure that uh you're able to
continue to build rapport never burn
bridges and to keep a neutral stance as
much as you can with your competition
because it's only going to help you in
the end
five
never be too good to be true you know
the world is craving authenticity these
days understand what your customers
where they're coming from and and give
it to them you know this is so important
there may be something you see as a need
that you want to fill as a provider for
your clients however your client doesn't
see that need or the value and what you
have to sell so ultimately it doesn't
matter always take the time to listen to
your clients and help them achieve the
success in the way that they envision it
then once you've established a trust
factor you can start to push some limits
and offer some suggestions that may be
out of their comfort zone
they may be more open to these ideas
once you have a proven track record with
them
six
get creative with your marketing plan
start with your audience tell a real
life story bring in some human element
in motion
also do your research look up your
competition so you know where
where and how you should be competing
with them
we know that the digital landscape is
continually evolving today you can no
longer put all your eggs in one basket
you have to take an omni-channel
approach to marketing and sales people
are craving a way to connect and
sometimes that comes down to the message
in the channel that that message comes
through as an example you may have a
google ad that performs with uh really
well with a certain message but your
engagement through
instagram stories or reels um the same
message is just performing better this
doesn't mean that you have to slash your
google ad it just means that you may
use the instagram platform to lead the
voice in the message and use other
platforms to support that message
seven
outsmart the competition by learning
from their mistakes so that you can
avoid making them yourself
study their products their pricing their
marketing techniques social media
strategy and their weaknesses this is
one of the best ways to grow and win new
clients you don't have to continually
innovate all the time or to grow and
beat your competition per se you just
have to be attuned to what they're doing
well and understand what is failing if
you notice key areas where they are
failing this automatically gives you the
upper hand to figure out how to do it
better
half of the battle
of
staying above the curve and not falling
short is understanding where your
competition is at
eight sync up with the right advisor
team just like any goal you want to
accomplish in order to accomplish that
goal you have to have a plan of action
if i per se want to lose weight i can't
rely on my apple watch to just count all
my steps i have to look at my meal
planning my calorie count a combination
of weight and cardio my overall mental
state you know losing weight is hard and
it takes a lot of effort and i need my
body and mind to be in balance in order
to lose weight sure i could do this all
on my own but it's fatiguing and i may
not have all the tools in my tool kit to
accomplish these tasks this is why i may
hire a dietitian or a health coach
or a trainer to deal with all aspects of
my mind and body while i'm on this
journey and i want to see results the
same goes for business it's important to
lean on the experts to get the help
necessary in order to achieve success
and see the impact you're looking for
within your company so three key pillars
and how a team can help you is one with
strategic growth planning and experience
insight and giving you the forecasting
that you need
two is by having a well-rounded advice
and support with regards to your
management marketing
sales operation and finance efforts and
three is ultimately having connections
so that you can resource uh high quality
um leads and get there quickly
so
as a recap i'd like to go over what we
we've covered today we talked about
knowing what you have to offer how to
have a solid identity how to build real
relationships knowing your competition
what you should avoid how you can get
creative with your marketing plan and
outsmart your competition and sync up
with the right team of advisors
so i know i briefly mentioned this
throughout the presentation but i would
also like to provide you with a little
bit more detail into venture expert
advisors who we are and what we
specialize in so we not only deal with
the project-based initiatives i talked
about earlier but we also help you flush
out strategic ideas and decisions we can
also help with the mental side of
running owning and operating a business
we have a new part of our business where
we are hosting a peak performance group
once a week where we use an app to check
in
with our general well-being the app can
chart our mental state by using a
scorecard system we chart our energy how
calm we are feeling our mood our
identity our happiness for the day and
we then get a score and a recommendation
from the app each day based upon our
results
we realize that there are many aspects
to running a business and we think it's
so important not only to help with the
business workload but we also want to
help with the mental health side if
we're not operating on all optimal
levels something has got to give there
is no case that's too big or too small
for us we just would love to chat with
local communities to see
how we may be able to help
that's why we are now setting up coffee
and conversations with founders partners
c-level executives it's always nice to
connect with local members of the
community regardless if we move forward
to the next level or not we're always
happy to to meet other fellow triangle
community members and we want to see you
succeed
so ultimately um we would love love it
if any of this resonates with you to
contact me you can see my email address
here it's the emily event adventure
expert advisors feel free to check out
our website shoot me a dm via linkedin
um and would love to can have any
continued conversations with you so
without further ado i'd love to open it
up there any questions uh conversation
that anybody else would like to
bring forth these days
i do have a question here so this
question is how do you manage your own
mental health that is a good question
um i always try to set up some sort of
routine for the day especially during
the week so i funny enough i happen to
be a coffee lover so every morning to me
starts with getting a cup of coffee
because i'm working remote these days i
try to get out of the house for that
endeavor so picking a local coffee shop
it could be starbucks i'm not gonna lie
uh and starting the day that way taking
a quick walk getting into the daily
routine and at the end of the day i like
to do some sort of form of exercise
whether that be for going on my peloton
taking a walk doing yoga to calm my
nurse the rest of the day and um
that kind of finishes the day so i do
try to manage my health by now with our
new app system that i'm tracking my mood
swings or you know where i'm at how
fatigued i am uh and also incorporating
um some some movement some exercise in
there as well
are there any other questions that i can
answer

yes i got one more you mentioned uh
researching the competition
where do you start another great
question you know i think um taking a
look at the general landscape right
doing your google search uh see where
they're at in linkedin what articles are
they posting what client success stories
can you come up on also talking with uh
prospects right sometimes in your market
or your niche market you're talking to
prospects we're not just talking to you
they're talking to your competition and
any sort of insight that you can gain
from anyone that you're talking to
whether that be by price um
also by structure how they're
structuring their business anything that
you can pick up and stay attuned to um
you know from reading articles looking
at social media even making calls as a
um maybe you're a fake prospect you want
to learn what does their process look
like um research can come in a lot of
different forms so that would be my my
at least starting go to and then you can
get a little bit more in the in the
weeds by having someone like more of a
professional staff like us do more of a
market analysis for you or we can kind
of dig up on background knowledge and
provide you with
a market report as well
any other questions

got one more uh how can you get started
with marketing
it's a great question you know i think
it depends upon where your firm is at um
and what where do you currently have a
formal ceo or not do you have a
marketing plan where you outline the
year and um figuring out what is what
does that pie look like is it from the
digital marketing space is it actually
uh more high level uh strategic
marketing um and so
you know really understanding the
greater pie and then digging down in the
trenches and figuring out
where is your priority is it maybe
reaching out to getting more media pr um
is it um getting more traction via
linkedin is it um you need more help
with the graphic design if you need more
help with website traffic and just
getting more eyeballs to the table that
are going to help you kind of convert
the leads looking at paid ads uh you
know facebook instagram google uh how
does that enter into the equation and um
we really take that 360 approach we want
to understand where your business is at
where you're looking to go and how we
can help fill the gaps in the needs um
in that equation as well so um that
would be my my initial response there
um
i think it looks like we're all set on
the question front so i want to thank
everybody who was able to make it today
we really appreciate you taking the time
out of your day learn a little bit more
about us learn some quick tips and
tricks that i think we could all use and
uh always open to the next level of
conversation that may bring upon coffee
just let me know so um thank you guys
for your time and we look forward to
touching this video at a future date
have a good rest of the day