As business leaders, you are always coming up with ways to make your company’s message heard. But the truth is, there’s a lot of competition out there in your industry, and so your message is drowned in the sea of stories. Australians see 3,000 branded messages in a single day, notice only 80, and react to only 10 — and half of these annoy rather than entertain.

So how can you make your business stand out?

One word: Remarkability.

Let’s start with you.

Be a Remarkable Leader

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jack Ma — these are just some of the most phenomenal business leaders of our time. They dream big, think outside the box, succeed with their endeavours, and are passionate about what they do.

Here are 5 simple steps you can do to be remarkable.

1. Know your strengths. What are your top 3 talents or your personal strengths? Perhaps you are a prolific writer or a motivational speaker or a strategic planner or a powerful negotiator. Whatever these are, if you want to be an extraordinary leader, use your strengths to your advantage.
2. Feel so confident that it shows in your face. It must start from within, a belief that you are confident with your strengths. Once you have that figured out, it should also show in your face and in your actions. A confident person looks people in the eye, smiles genuinely, stands or sits erect, and has a firm handshake.
3. Get out of your safe zone. Breakthroughs happen outside the comfort zone. If you want to be unforgettable, take on big projects and jump at an opportunity to accept bigger responsibilities. It may not guarantee you the success you want, but it will help you grow. Seth Godin, author of Purple Cow, said, “Being safe is risky. The path to lifetime job security is to be remarkable”.
4. Share your ideas. It doesn’t matter if your ideas conflict with that of your co-managers’. Having a different opinion is good as it offers a different perspective and can lead to an enriching, refreshing discussion. So be willing to share a piece of your mind in a dutiful way. Chances are, someone in the room is thinking exactly of the same thing but just couldn’t voice it out.
5. Seek out a mentor. Step Change’s CEO, Ashton, had creative director Dave Trott as a mentor. Executive General Manager, Adam, reached out to Danny Almagor, founder of Engineers Without Borders Australia and Small Giants, and asked him to be his mentor. Having a mentor gives you a front-seat experience of how they manage their career, treat their employees, and handle different situations. So find someone in your industry that’s worth following. Shadow them, pick their brains, study how they work, learn from them, and schedule regular coffee meetings with them.

Now that you have an idea of how to be truly remarkable as a leader, your goal is to get your organisation — your team and your business — to embrace remarkability as a culture.

Create an Organisation that Stands Out

A remarkable business stands out in the marketing noise and builds and cements loyalty among staff and customers. At Step Change, “going for the wow”, or being remarkable, is part of our Step Change in Action values, our guide to making smart decisions.

By having the values upfront and on display, it reminds staff of the types of behaviours that are valued in the workplace, and it reminds everyone that when in doubt, pick the work that wows, be remarkable, inspire, and think boldly. To be a remarkable business, do the following:

• Go the extra mile. Train your staff to always think about how you can make you customers’ lives easier. Think of ways on how they can get the best possible experience when they visit your office or website.

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• Get things done. An excellent team that stands out does not focus what it can’t do. Making excuses as to why they can’t perform is not an option. Instead, a remarkable team focuses on their core strengths and delivers what they promise to deliver remarkably well.
• Choose your opportunities. Place great value to your commitment to deliver excellence. You can do this by saying no to irrelevant opportunities. If it doesn’t serve the purpose of your business, and if it sacrifices your company’s authenticity, then refuse. Being remarkable means you don’t compromise on quality and, most especially, don’t put your company’s reputation on the line.

Be a remarkable company or drown in the marketing noise. It’s all about going for the wow — always thinking of better ways to engage customers, focusing on your core strengths as a company, and saying yes to the best opportunities.

There are actually many ways you can do to make your company extraordinary and memorable — as Seth Godin pointed out in his book Purple Cow, “How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?” Share to us in the comments section below your steps in creating a culture that goes for the wow.