Obscurity is killing your business

I was recently asked to advice a company on how to improve their processes to be become more efficient in order to increase sales. It was a real worry for the management team as they had invested so much into delivering a high quality product. The quality of the product didn’t make much of a difference in driving new sales, they lamented that their competitors with a lower quality product were clearly outselling them.

So I decided to do a quick Google search of one their competitors who offered a lower quality service. And immediately i could see one reason why they were out performing them. Summed it up in one word "attention". Yes If you want to be successful and grow your business, your sales revenue and your brand, you must get attention and lots of it.

Related: Knowledge Is Power, Or Is It?

I pointed out to the team that their competitors were really dominating the online space and engaging with more prospects, especially on the social media front where they were being very creative with the use of the platform. Several members of the team were resistant saying "our industry is conservative we can't risk our reputation". It became evident that they were shying away from creating an on-line presence and preferred to focus on the quality of their product and believed that business will show up on their doorstep.

One thing entrepreneurs must be aware of is  that businesses will fail if they don’t get attention, and that obscurity kills businesses. Alot of solid ideas and great products out there disappear because most don't know how to get attention. And on the other hand you see mediocre products and service selling and doing well. If you take a closer look. you'll notice, those people, products and services are devoted to getting attention.