There’s a breakneck pace that many new solo business owners assume. With an infinite number of things to do, and about a dozen hats to wear, it gets overwhelming, fast.

And, that’s nothing compared to what happens once the business actually has some momentum under it. That’s why one of my clients with a brand-new business was asking me: “Craig, how do you get it all done? Your business has about 100 times more going on in it than mine does, and I’m overwhelmed just with what I’m trying to get done.”

Content rules. Whether you’re tweeting, writing blog posts, or contributing to a LinkedIn group discussion, it is content that drives conversations and connects your professional services firm to its social network. But creating content that your audience will want to read can be challenging.

Imagine you’re reading this paragraph in a consulting firm’s blog:

An organization’s business architecture revolves around five broad areas viz. the customer segment, scope of products or services, geographic coverage, strategic differentiation and profit pools. During the course of an M&A, organizations tend to alter one or more parameters of their business architecture which will impact their IT strategy needed to enhance customer reach, add efficiencies, reduce cost, add competitive advantage or enable business processes that could bolster any of the aforementioned.

Difficult to read*, isn’t it? Too often, B2B firms create excruciating content just like this and push it out to their social media channels. Then they wonder why they get so little engagement in return.

A website’s success is all about answering that famous question: What’s in it for me?

In order to capture someone’s attention (and keep it) you have to offer them something they want today!!! And they must feel enough urgency to act on it today.

How many times have you told yourself you’d come back to that website “later” and never did?

If your website doesn’t have a hook that keeps the visitor on site, you’re losing business – more importantly, you’re losing valuable repeat business; because an effective hook will not only reel visitors in the first time around – it will also cause them to return to your website over and over and over again.

What You Need Is a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

To stand out in today’s competitive market, marketing and business development professionals need to focus on what’s unique and special about the business. What you need: A Unique Selling Proposition (USP)—a single statement that anyone can easily understand, a sentence that clearly defines what makes you better, different or unique.

Comparing the two positions will quickly point out that they are very different. Today’s savvy business executive recognizes that the traditional sales executives’ role of “recruiting, hiring, training and motivating” sales pros no longer is enough to keep the company growing and competitive.  Elements of marketing are being added to the list of responsibilities.  And [...]