Hills District Small Business Expo & Conference

Welcome & Keynote - Stand out without selling out in the age of online influence

Stand out without selling out in the age of online influence with Kirryn Zerna

Imagine your favourite coffee shop. To get there you’ve walked past not one, not two but 7 coffee shops. Now picture it heaving with dine-in eaters and takeaway orders out the door, while the next-door neighbour café is empty. No queues. No people.

Why does this happen? With such a straightforward commodity product like coffee, how does one coffee shop stand out, while its neighbour is invisible?

The Quest to Stand Out…
The quest to STAND OUT in a crowded marketplace and to attract attention from potential customers is not a modern-day problem; it’s an age-old pursuit. It’s simply that today the context has changed. What was once a physical market place, became a street of retail shops, became a city reached through radio, became a nation reached through television, became a globe seamlessly connected through the internet and social media.

Today we live in the age of online influence. As Homo Deus author Yuval Noah Harari elegantly puts it, “A global audience connected by a digital message just like a whisper… what once we only thought possible by the God’s.”

So how do you seize the opportunity to amplify your brand and reputation? How do you stand out in this complex and crowded space without selling out on what makes you unique?