As a member of BNI, we meet weekly to pass referrals and each week, we do an infomercial about our business.
The format isn’t structured, but every once in a while, it’s suggested that we do something very specific in our infomercial. This week, it was suggested that we list two services that we provide. In doing that, I got an aha moment from a number of people in the room. After three years in the chapter, my members had not understood what I did clearly enough to recognize these items.
The specific services that I described were:
- I provide a business operations diagnostic, showing a business owner where his business is encountering problems, and what he can do about it.
- I provide an independent non-technical support to business owners who are receiving technical proposals from IT suppliers and don’t have the technical skills to evaluate them.
These services were much more specific than what I had done before and it created new understanding of what I do. In BNI we are taught to eliminate generalizations and be very specific. Also to narrow our target market, so that people can focus on our needs. This situation is an example of narrowing your target. I hadn’t thought of describing it this way before.
Learning to market your services more effectively by getting continuous feedback is one of the benefits of meeting weekly.
