How to Attract the Right Customers with Clear Value-Driven Messaging

Are you giving customers a clear reason to choose you over your competitors? Or are you just saying the same thing, but maybe slightly differently? Saying things like great service, quality work, quality products, trust, integrity. It's not that saying those things are bad, but if everyone is saying the same thing, then no one is really standing out. And then you're not giving your customers a clear reason to choose you over someone else.

I've been working with trade businesses on their language and their messaging and their websites and their marketing for the last 15 years. And almost all of them come to me saying the same thing, which is we do great quality work, we provide great customer service, we use the best products, we do it right the first time, we care about our customers. Those are all good things, but they're too vague, they're too generic, and they're too overused.

And it's hard to build processes around great customer service if you haven't actually defined what great customer service is. The other issue is customers have their own expectations of what great customer service is. So if we don't clearly define it up front, if we don't clearly set expectations about this is what we mean when we say great customer service, this is what we mean in the process, this is what we mean in the communication, this is what we mean in the deliverables, then it is open for interpretation, and there can be a lot of disconnect, and there can be a lot of unmet expectations.

A customer had one idea in their head, you had another, your employees probably had a completely different idea of what great customer service meant, and no one is on the same page. And that's where we end up falling through the cracks and having bad customer experiences that hurt our reputation.

The other issue with staying too generic or too vague is that if you are in a trades or service business where someone is wanting to get a quote or a bid from you, then chances are they're not just getting one, they're getting at least two or three. So you're going to send them a bid, and your competitors are going to send them a bid, and they're going to look at them and they're just going to be focused on price unless you give them a reason to focus on something else.

You give them a reason to focus on your value, you give them a reason to focus on why you are different, why you are the better choice, why they are going to be happier with you. So being able to clearly communicate that in your messaging, in your marketing, in your sales is going to make a huge impact. Generic words like quality service or our integrity or our quality products is just not going to cut it. It's not going to be enough.

The other disconnect that I've seen is that businesses can say one thing in person, but then they can say something else on their website and their marketing. There's a disconnect between what you talk like in real life and what you say to customers and what naturally flows out of your mouth, compared to what you're saying on your website and your marketing, because that's more like marketing speak, something that your agency or your web developer probably put on your website instead of you. And that is not authentic. That is not what the experience actually feels like or sounds like when the customer calls you and says, hey, I am interested in having my home built. Hey, I am interested in having my HVAC system reworked.

The other really unique thing about being in a service business is that it's more about trust and expertise and outcome than it is about a product. And so what we say and what we tell customers that they can expect and what we tell them as to why they should choose us means a lot, because there is this expectation that we need to follow through. And of course, we want to follow through, but we want to make sure that what we're promising, what we're telling them is going to happen, really is authentic and it really is delivered. And it's delivered because the way that you operate, your processes, your software, your people are all aligned and built to deliver on this specific brand promise, this specific customer experience.

In the world of trades and services, it's really not about the what, because every one of your competitors also sells the what. All the HVAC companies in town sell heating, plumbing, air conditioning, ventilation. All of the landscaping companies sell landscape design and maintenance. The home builders sell home building. And in a local or regional business, there's not just one of you. There's usually at least five or 10 or 20 that you are going up against. And so you really have to stand out, but you have to stand out authentically, and you have to stand out to attract the right type of customer, because we all know that there's a wrong type of customer and there's a right type of customer, and that is specific to your brand. It is specific to the type of work and the type of projects that you are wanting to attract.

I was actually talking to a concrete contractor the other day, and we were looking at their site, and I was asking them about their business and their projects and the types of projects that they really enjoy doing. We were talking about their processes and their bottlenecks, and they were telling me that the types of projects that are their favorite are the ones that are either as a sub for a general contractor on commercial properties or as a subcontractor for a home builder on high-end residential. They don't want the smaller little projects.

So I was listening to what they were saying, and then I was comparing it to what I was reading on the website. And the website wasn't aligning and it wasn't positioning to attract those types of projects. It wasn't positioned to attract those types of customers because it was speaking more to a homeowner, and it was serving more as a broad general catch-all, like, hey, we do everything if it's concrete. And that was not how they were trying to position their brand.

So I said, I feel like we can reposition your messaging, because there's a disconnect in what you are saying that you want as a business and the types of customers and projects you want to attract, which is mainly targeting other contractors, than what is currently showing up on your site. So we are reworking their messaging, we are focusing in on the types of projects that they want to attract, the types of contractors that they want to attract, and setting themselves apart, because their differentiators also were missing. They weren't saying why someone should choose them, and they were missing some really key, important certifications and some things that really highlighted their unique industry experience. It was completely missing from their messaging.

And so when we're looking at differentiators or we're looking at why customers should choose you, we want to be specific, because your brand is not something that you create, it's not something that you fabricate in a vacuum, it's not something that you just come up with. Your brand is shaped by what you've lived through, by what you believe, and by who you already are, because what you believe, your personality, that shapes how you make decisions. It shapes how you relate to your customers, it shapes how you manage your projects, it shapes the people that you hire and how you lead them.

And that has been influenced by everything that you have lived through. It has been shaped by everything that has brought you to where you are today, the training you received, the projects you've worked on, the mistakes that you've made, the lessons that you've learned. That is your brand. So when we're trying to message and position you to attract the right type of customers by communicating your brand value, we are doing it based off of truth, based off of what has happened. And we're diving into the story so that we can be really clear and really specific.

I also ran into this when I was in the distribution company. I worked for a gas and welding distributor. And in the gas and welding world, you don't sell anything unique. Every distributor in the area, in the region, in the country, they all buy from the majority of the same manufacturers. You're either a Miller distributor, a Lincoln distributor, a Fronius distributor, or all three of them if you're big enough. But either way, they are showing up to your business and asking you to sell their product, but they're also showing up to your competitors and the other distributors and also asking them to sell their product.

That means that everything you sell, and even the gas. There is no better gas molecule. They all come from the same ASU plants. No molecules in one cylinder or tank are different than another. So when you're a gas and welding distributor, you have the choice to compete on price when it comes to gas, but that's a race to the bottom, and no one really wants to do that. So you have to find out what your competitive advantage is. How are you different? And it really comes down to how you run your operations and how you serve your customers. So it comes down to your people and it comes down to your process.

So when I was at the gas and welding distributor and I was the director of marketing there, we were looking at, okay, what makes us different? Why would someone choose us over the other competitors in town? And how are we going to attract the types of customers who are going to value that experience? They're going to value that relationship. And so having clarity around that drove everything that we did. It drove the messaging on our website, it drove the messaging in our sales conversations, and it drove who we hired, because we needed to hire people who were aligned with wanting to deliver that type of customer experience, because it's something that they valued. We were hiring people who were naturally wired, who were naturally relationship-driven and cared about people, to serve our customers at the highest level.

So over the last 15 years, I've worked with over 150 different businesses within service trades and construction industries. I have worked with multiple home builders, landscaping, roofing, distribution, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, all types of different trades. And while they all have started with the same generic messaging, we have found that they are not the same. What really makes them different, what really drives their experience, what really sets them apart in the market and their unique differentiators are very much specific to them. So how do we actually figure that out and then communicate that to attract our ideal customers by communicating the value that we bring in a very simple way?

Number one is we have to clarify. And we are clarifying by looking at what have you lived through, what has brought you up to now? It is a hundred percent story driven. We look at what are the customer experiences that you've had, real specific examples. What are the experiences that you've had with employees, employees who have thrived working for you, and employees who have struggled to work with you, your own personal experiences and what brought you to run the business, how you lead, how you manage, why you do what you do.

We are looking at real things that have actually happened. This is not theoretical, it is not hypothetical, it is not aspirational. This isn't about what you imagine that you are or what you want to have happen. This is only based in what has happened.

And so we look at things like what does a typical work week look like for you? What does your project process look like for you? When you bid a project, what kind of software are you using? How fast are you doing it? Is that something that drives the experience or not? Are you valuing speed? Are you valuing technology? Are you valuing innovation? Are you valuing safety? What kinds of processes do you have in place to ensure certain things? And where you put your focus, where you put your money and your time and your energy, those are the things that you value. Those are the things that you care about.

So we're going to pull that story out of everything that you've said, and we're just going to articulate it and communicate it in everyday simple language, because it's what you've lived through, experienced, who you are, what you believe. That is what shapes your brand. So we're going to take that story and then we're going to communicate it using clear messaging in everyday language.

This is something that I really try and focus on, to create messaging that sounds like how my clients talk in real life. Not what I think sounds good, not something that sounds professional, but it's authentic and an accurate representation of what do you really say? What do you say on the phone? What do you say to customers? Are you someone who is very laid back and easygoing and there's humor in how you communicate? That should show up in your messaging. Are you someone who is very straightforward, very direct? That should show up in your messaging.

It's not about sounding good, it's about sounding real, and also communicating in a way that uses the most minimal amount of text as possible. This is not about information overload. This is about how I can communicate in the most simple, clear, direct way as fast as possible with as little words as possible, using headlines, using images, using graphics, using how we present information so that a brain can easily digest this information.

And then what goes on a website or in a marketing campaign is actually what a customer would hear and experience when they talk to you or when they talk to your team, because that's what's going to happen next. And we want to set those expectations very clearly from the beginning, because that's what attracts the right type of people, and that's what sets everybody up to have a really good experience.

And when we're pulling out our messaging, we're really looking at two main areas. We're looking at your brand identity. This is who your business is, what you value, how you work, the types of people who thrive in your organization, your non-negotiables and what you don't tolerate. This is really defining the internal working environment and culture and people of your company. And this is also a lot of the messaging that we use to attract the right type of employees when we're looking at hiring.

And then the second category we're looking at is brand positioning. This is more focused on how you talk to customers. We're looking at what are your core offers, what are your unique differentiators, what's your unique value proposition, what are your messaging pillars, what is the information that you need to communicate in order to attract the right type of customers. And again, we focus on minimalism, we focus on what do we need to define, knowing that every single component has a purpose and we know exactly where and how it shows up in hiring, in marketing, in your website, in your ad campaigns, in your sales conversations.

And so we actually have this narrowed down to 10 elements, and we have those 10 elements available in a free download on our website. You can just go to clearauthenticbrands.com/resources to figure out what they are, and if you have those defined for your business. Because if you don't, chances are you are struggling with your messaging and you're not attracting the right customers, you're not generating the type of leads that you want, or you're not attracting the right type of employees and you're struggling in your hiring, or maybe not so much your hiring, but your retention. And it comes down to not having those elements defined.

So after we've clarified your story and your business and what's brought you to where you are today, and then we have created clear messaging from it using everyday language and defining those 10 elements, then we have to make sure that everything aligns. So then we are making sure that it is not messaging that just lives internally in a document or in your head. It's messaging that shows up on your website, it shows up in your marketing, it shows up in your conversations, it shows up in your hiring, it shows up in what employees are trained on. It shows up in your processes.

So when you say that you're a company that streamlines processes and is very tech savvy and you are trying to automate things for a very smooth experience, then you know you're probably a business that really looks at software. You're using field management software, you're using GPS tracking, you're using QuickBooks Online, you are trying to have a process and software that is running the back end of your business so that you can create a really streamlined process and experience for your customers.

So that's something that we would pull into the marketing messaging so that one, we can attract customers who appreciate that, who that is what they want. They want visibility, they want to know that you're mitigating the opportunities for human error. And we want to use that in your hiring messaging, because you need to attract employees who are tech savvy and who are embracing that way of life and get excited about the tools and the tech. And because once they come on, this is going to be how you operate.

So as a business, you're looking at what software should we be using and how can we connect everything? And how can we streamline these things and make sure that we're using our people for relationship-driven things and we're using tech for process-driven things. And that's just one example of how if you're an HVAC company, that could be messaging that sets you apart from the other HVAC companies. Or if you're a home builder, that could be messaging that sets you apart from the other home builders instead of just saying we build beautiful houses with quality work and custom craftsmanship.

I mean, if everybody else says that, then it doesn't really stand out. So we want to dive deeper into that and actually say, what does quality craftsmanship mean to you? And how does that show up in your business? And then we're going to be more specific about it and use that messaging to attract the customers who are going to actually want that.

So when you have your processes built, you are delivering on your messaging so that what you say, what you do, and what people experience is all consistent, which is what builds trust, it builds your reputation, it builds the loyalty, it spreads the word of mouth, which is the most powerful form of marketing still, especially in a trades business in a local or regional area. So that is so important, because you could say all the right things, but if you don't have the people and the processes built in to deliver on that experience, you will hurt yourself in the long run and it will be something that you will struggle to ever come back from.

If you're recognizing that you don't have the type of clarity you need, or maybe your messaging is too generic, or you're not attracting the right people because you're not sure what to say to actually attract them to begin with, we can help you do that through our clarity workshop, where we give you the messaging that attracts the right customers and employees based on your unique brand story and experience. You can learn more about that at clearauthenticbrands.com/brand-clarity-workshop. But that is all for this episode, and I'll see you guys next time.