Small Business Growth Strategies: Build a List of Your Services" loading="lazy">
The literal and primary meaning of the term “Jack of all trades” is this: a person who can do many different types of work.
Often, it is suggested that while a jack of all trades can do a great variety of things, they’re not an expert at any of these things.
Referring to someone as a jack of all trades is often taken as a compliment, but when you’re trying to start up a business and guide it towards the path of growth, you hire people not to make them do many things at once, but to do one or a few things for your business, and do it very well. You want someone with an expertise – someone with a set of core competencies that you don’t have.
Sustaining a business and taking it towards the path of growth requires being able to beat competition. To do so means that you have to be better. Being better also means that you must have the best people around helping you run things. That leads us to our topic.
Among the best growth strategies you can employ when starting a business is building a list of the services you sell. This way, you’ll know how to focus your sales and marketing efforts towards your core competencies. To start, it might be great for you to understand first and foremost, why knowing what your core competencies are is important in business.
In this article, we’ll be discussing how having a defined list of services helps your business.
Let’s begin!
What are Core Competencies?
Investopedia defines ‘core competencies’ as the “defining characteristics that make a business or an individual stand out from the competition”. Moreover, they are the defining products, services, skills, capabilities, and resources that comprise the strategic advantages of a business over its competitors".
Core competencies are the attributes possessed by your company that can’t be replicated by its competitors.
Common core competencies include but are not limited to the following: superior quality of products, innovation, superior customer service, buying power, fastest production and delivery, lowest cost, and highest flexibility, among others.
The list can still go on, but the thing is, having a proper grasp of what core competencies are gives you an idea how having a defined list of services (core competencies) helps your business.
What Does Defining a List of Services Mean?
For a small business to be able to define its list of services implies that they identify what their core competencies are.
To do so, the business owner must ask himself/herself: what do we have to offer? What sets us apart from other establishments who have the same offerings? What is it about what we do or what we sell that other businesses offering the same products/services can’t hold a candle to?
You do this because having a defined list of services can let you see not only how you can be distinct from your competitors, but also show you how to better spend your resources. This is also a good reason for why knowing what your core competencies are is important in business.
Running a business means you exert efforts in order to move things along your marketing and sales processes. It is in the magnitude of efforts you exert to keep this process going that you realize how having a defined list of services helps your business– it keeps you from wasting time, energy, and resources on unimportant things.
How to Focus Your Sales and Marketing Efforts Towards Your Core Competencies
By now you’re probably wondering exactly how to focus your sales and marketing efforts towards your core competencies.
There are a few tips you can try.
OUTLINE A LIST OF SERVICES
You have to know what you have to offer, what you’re good at, and what you can be the best at. When you know what you have to offer, and you let the world know about it, then whoever needs exactly what your offering is will be able to seek you out.
TARGET THE RIGHT LEADS
Of course it follows that when you finally know what you have to offer, when you have defined a list of services/ products you sell, then you can target the right leads. You can advertise to the right market and target the right niche. The way you spend your time, energy and other resources, are more focused.
DOCUMENT THE PROSPECT’S JOURNEY
Targeting the right leads will then require you to guide these leads as they transition into becoming clients/customers. However, before they arrive at the decision you wish for them to make, they go through an entire journey that we like to refer to as the “buyer’s journey”. Here, it is important you figure out ways to guide your prospects into making a purchase without actually having to do so.
CREATE RESOURCES TO SUPPORT THE SALES PROCESS
In the past, you had your TV, radio, newspaper ads that could do this for you. Today, you have your websites, blogs, and various social media channels that can do the job of selling your “core competencies” to the people who actually need it.
Final Take: Why Knowing What Your Core Competencies are is Important in Business
You see, there are a lot of industries out there. All these industries are made up of thousands of small businesses, all of which have something unique to offer. Knowing what your core competencies are allows you to leverage it to your advantage.
Knowing what your core competencies are will also let you figure out where and how to spend your resources. When you can save on the insignificant aspects of your processes, you can allocate more into what actually serves you and catapults you into growth.
