I’ve worked with a great many small businesses and I can’t tell you how many times they had no idea what their competitive advantage was. Oh, many thought they did. The most popular being, “we provide great service”. The problem is service is not a differentiator. To prove that, just ask any company if their service stinks. So how can you determine your unique competitive advantage and start to differentiate and dominate your market?

I suggest you ask your customers. Create a form and get in the habit of surveying a handful of customers every month. You’ll be rewarded with really valuable insight and you’ll even find that your customers appreciate being asked what they think. However, one word of caution, don’t accept vague answers like “you provide good service.” While you may enjoy hearing that, you can’t work with it. Push a bit and ask what good service looks like and perhaps even ask if they can tell you about a specific instance as an example of your good service.

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One of the foundational elements in creating a successful marketing strategy is to understand just who your ideal target client is. This is not always an easy task. You can’t simply view sets of demographics, psychographics and geographics to quickly define your perfect client.

So how can you begin?

The 5 steps below, applied to your current client base and worked in order, will tell you more about your true ideal client than any marketing class or book ever will.

1. Find your most profitable clients

2. From the above group identify those that refer

3. From that even smaller group find common demographic characteristics

4. Take the time now to understand the behavior that makes them ideal

5. Draw a fully developed biographical sketch to use as your marketing guide