WHAT AM I REALLY SELLING IN MY BUSINESS?

One of the most misunderstood things about starting a business is working out what you are selling? What is your actual service, what is your product? Are you selling your time or your ideas?

When your business is about you, does that mean you are selling yourself?

I mean we are telling you to understand your story and get your face out there. Are you just pimping your most authentic self out for money?

No matter what you are selling whether it’s a product, a service or your time, what you are actually selling is how do you make people feel.

We are all in the feelings-trade honey.

Think about a coke ad.

Have you ever seen an ad about a fizzy sugar-filled drink that cleans coins overnight? No - their commercials are always about people enjoying themselves, the families together. They research extensively to capture from their audience how they want to feel and then they market that product back to you.

They have had marketing campaigns around “Life tastes good” or even ‘’Open happiness’’. Their current slogan is “Taste the feeling”.

We have told them through focus groups that we are looking for meaning, happiness, a great life and they position and associate their product with that. It seems like we are buying a drink but what we are really buying is how we want to feel.

Nike is another company that does that really well. It looks like a sports company on the outside but it’s really more like a personal development company selling the feeling and experience of the sport of smashing through your goals and limiting beliefs. They make genius ads that capture how you want to feel powerful as a strong woman and we almost believe that just by wearing it we are - whether we actually do anything with it or not.

Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee it sells a certain status as if you have arrived. A lifestyle. You could buy a coffee anywhere but you don’t get to feel like you are a character out of friends.

Apple doesn’t just sell technology it sells you the feeling that you are all of a sudden more creative, imaginative and innovative as soon as you switch it on and hear that little sound. You are part of a revolutionary, out of the box way of doing things. It’s not just created intimacy with its customers. It is loved. Although my husband does have a bit of a love-hate relationship with his Mac book pro. He swears at it a lot but there is no mistaking that deep long-lasting bond.

Feelings are so powerful. Much more powerful than things.

Think about how people will crisscross the world for love. Think about the power of hatred to destroy lives. How motivated some people are for power of revenge or what lengths we will go to to be happy.

What’s the underlying feeling behind what you are selling?

My first company, the English teddy bear company looked like it was selling Teddy bears, teddy bear t-shirts, fashion for teddy bears, (I know, random) and all things teddybear related.

It was actually selling warm fuzzy feelings.

Tourists were coming to England to experience all those stories of Winnie the poo and Paddington bear and they mixed that up with red buses and Big Ben. They wanted to take those warm fuzzy feelings home. They wanted to share it with their friends. They took a slice of England home with every teddy bear.

I used to love going to Betty’s tea room in York with my friend Dominic. We didn’t go often but we loved it. You could say we were buying food but we felt like we were buying joy. The place had a timeless quality about it, the music, the ambiance. We always stocked up on goodies on the way out in their shop. Tea and cookies and little snacks. In reality, I can get tea and cookies just about anywhere. My local petrol station sells tea and cookie. We weren’t buying tea and cookies, we were buying how Betty’s tea room made us feel.

If you understand what feeling your product, service or time is really selling it makes it so much easier to understand how to brand it, how to market it and how to sell it. It impacts just about everything you do.

Content Jam is selling confidence. Not any old type of confidence - the kind of confidence that comes from being totally at home in your own skin, showing up fully embracing who you are and what you are all about.

The confidence that comes from running your own business on your own terms, being your own boss living your dreams.

And you thought we were selling photography? That’s just one of the vehicles we use to get you totally in touch with how incredible you are.

We are also selling a connection. We want to be connecting with real people in real life. We want you to understand your story, both visually and verbally and using it to authentically connect to your audience.

You aren’t selling yourself, thank God, that would be weird, you aren’t selling your soul. You are selling how you make people feel and when you know what that it helps you powerfully connect with your people.

We are creative entrepreneurs with years of experience building successful and rewarding businesses for ourselves and others. Now we want to focus on You.

Making you and your business look, feel, sound and sell like a total rockstar is our secret sauce.