As the plane lifts off, imagine yourself reclining comfortably in your first class seat. You're headed for San Francisco where you'll be met by a driver and whisked to a luxury hotel with views of the bay. The tab is being picked up by a company looking to buy your firm, and your biggest concern is how much cash and stock to ask for when you meet with the president of the company and the senior officers. Sound like a fantasy?

Actually, I was the person being whisked across country, a few years back, to negotiate the sale of a web site I had built. With a lot of hard work and a carefully executed positioning I created the opp0rtunity to make more than I thought possible from what had started as a just for fun project.

Whether you are a builder, accountant, realtor, market researcher, or manufacture loudspeakers or baseball bats, the way you position your firm can determine your succss.

- Do you want prospects to seek you out?

- Do you want people to pay you more?

- Do you want to stand head and shoulders above your competition?

With a simple positioning strategy you can get more attention than you imagined and bring in those high-margin projects and the profits you want. Here's how I positioned one of my ideas for succss.

1. IDENTIFY A NEED

In 1999, a new search engine was appearing on the Internet almost every week. Some were much better than others. Knowing which search tool to use was confusing. Through my own interest in finding better tools to navigate the web, I'd discovered a common need.

2. EDUCATE PPROSPECTS TO DEMONTSTATE YOUR KNOWLEDGE

Based on four years of study of search engines and a book I'd written previously on marketing to the search engines, I'd become an expert on how they did and didn't work. To help my own online research and to help others, I built a web site that provided a directory of search engines and reviewed their usefulness and functionality.

- What are your areas of expertise?

The objective of my site was simple. At a time when most people were just discovering the web, I wanted to help them find the best possible search tools for their particular task. My mission was to educate people about how to find what they were looking for online. The site primarily focused on the growing number of reviews I authored. Instead of leading with information about my credentials, I used the content on the site to demonstrate my knowledge.

- What can you do to educate your prospects?

- How can you demonstrate your expertise?

3. IDENTIFY AND REACH YOUR TARGET MARKET

Now I needed a way to get people to the site. While my target market was almost infinite - anyone searching the Internet - my advertising budget was zero. (Remember I was doing this as a back pocket project while maintaining my marketing consulting practice.) How could I attract attention and get people to come back to the web site again and again?

I identified online editors and reference librarians as identifiable, approachable groups with a high level of interest and influence. I started an ezine directing readers to current search engine reviews and updates on the site and published approximately once a month.

- What is your stay-in-touch strategy?

RESULTS

After just three issues of my ezine reporters started calling me for radio interviews and magazine articles. I received an offër to buy the web site with the price tied to the number of monthly visitors and page views. Three months later I had grown traffic to the site from thirty thousand to three hundred thousand page views per month and closed the deal.

POSITIONING YOUR COMPANY

To position your product or service for succss:

A. Identify a Common Need

B. Identify a Market

C. Demonstrate Your Expertise to that Market

D. Continue to Stay in Touch

If you've been in business for three years or more you've accumulated a wealth of experience and knowledge. The more you share your ideas, the more people will view you as an expert and seek you out. Give your prospects examples of your expertise and they will think of you when they need your products or services.

You can use an ezine, your web site, a book, workshops or public speaking to demonstrate your knowledge and put your firm ahead of the competition. Using the strategy outlined above and a little effort you can position your business for succëss and put yourself in front.

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