As your business grows, do you find yourself paying more attention to others in your niche and following their patterns? Do your products tend to be similar to theirs and your services a different version of what is already available?
While many businesses these days tend to fit a certain mold, the one size fits all business can actually be damaging, not only to you, the business owner, but also to your customers. Thinking that you are supposed to do things a certain way, just because everyone else does, is one way not to stand out in the marketplace.
Conformity is even more common in these days of social media. Most business owners tend to have a presence on the more popular sites and while this can work well if done properly, there is nothing about their interaction with their customers that stands out above any other business. Most use social media to attract business, not realizing that not every customer is what they want or need.
While conforming may be the norm in society, (it tends to make most people feel comfortable), getting too comfortable in your business is completely different. Once you reach that point, you are most likely quite successful and feel you can relax. You’ve probably reached an income level where you are secure but haven’t yet realized that there is such a thing as being too stable, too normal – possibly too bland and boring? This is what conforming to the rules of business can do if you let it. Conformity allows no time or space for growth, for branching out into something that interests you.
Conformity means following a pattern, day after day; always watching what everyone else is doing, never offering yourself a challenge. Is this really what you want for your business? Do you want to close your eyes to the possibilities in order to not rock the boat? Your uniqueness transfers itself to your business and this is what customers are looking for and what they talk about to others. They love to tell everyone about something they have purchased is just that little bit different or better than what everyone else has.
People who succeed in the long term don’t conform, don’t necessarily play by every business rule and certainly don’t push to have their businesses look just like all of the rest. Though they connect with others and believe in marketing, their idea of a growing business means taking a little of this and a little of that and then making it their own. Their businesses are a different and better version of what is already available.
In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from. ~ Peter Ustinov
© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014
