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When you create a Market Dominating Position (MDP) you’re on track to successfully scale your business. I discuss how to do that with my guest, Ed Middlebrooks.
Ed is not your typical business coach—he’s a strategic weapon for entrepreneurs who are done playing small. Ed Middlebrooks is the founder of Elite Profit Coach, where he works with driven business owners to uncover hidden profit, outmaneuver competitors, and install dominance into their markets.
Ed was the kid in the server closet for 25 years working a job in IT services. That job got him involved with business planning. He realized that technology affects the growth of a business. He found himself interfacing with high-level executives about more than just small technology issues. Ed began asking “How does the infrastructure of the business really allow us to foster growth and increase communications which ultimately increases sales and marketing results? “
Entering the Entrepreneurship World
After 25 Ed left the corporate IT world because he learned about real estate investing and how to automate a business using what he calls “The Five Steps of Every Business”; which is:
- To get customers, you must first generate leads.
- Prescreen those leads.
- Construct and present offers.
- Close quickly.
- Follow up with everybody.
Those five steps exist in so many places within a business. In his real estate investing career, his firm bought 24 houses with none of their own money, no banks and no credit. He had 17 Air BnBs. He built a multimillion-dollar business providing rentals. He took the strategies that he learned from working with C-Suite executives, negotiating and networking. Ed discovered that the secrets of growing and scaling a business appear to be fairly unique to each business, but they all come down to a singular strategy or pattern. When you put the building blocks in the right order, things happen, your strategies work, and your business grows.
The Starting Point of Marketing Strategy and Business Growth
First, you must take an analysis of your business. When it comes to growing and scaling a business, most entrepreneurs look at how to generate more revenue. They’re always thinking about the income. They want to foster more business. Whereas that’s true to a point, what Ed finds is that a lot of businesses are just chasing good money after bad. For example, they spend money on ads without really understanding the fundamentals of their business and how the ads boost (or don’t boost) the bottom line.
Ed has a mantra that he’s learned along the way. That is “Revenue feeds the ego, but profit feeds your family.” When he talks about growing and scaling a business, he’ll show a business how to become more profitable without spending any extra money on marketing. This is assuming that there’s already a steady flow of business coming into that company. What they can do is make some changes. They can reduce the cost of goods sold, they can look at making more compelling offers, and so on.
Creating Your Market Dominating Position (MDP)
One thing stands out above everything else. That is understanding your company’s Market Dominating Position (MDP); sometimes referred to as the Unique Selling Position. What is the MDP of your company? If you don’t have that all you’re doing is throwing money into marketing, hoping that people connect with your messaging. You’re doing what everyone else does. When you do that, you can end up stuck in a red ocean (filled with “sharks”) and you’re not in a blue ocean. Ed’s not talking about creating a product that nobody else has. He’s talking about what the capacity of your business is to provide and deliver unique and superior value amongst your competition.
Here’s another question that you must ask regardless of what your industry is. The question comes down to “What are the benefits you offer to your target market that set you apart from all of your competitors?” Once you figure that out, decide what the capacity of your business is to deliver those benefits. That means your MDP can be defined by the capacity of your business to deliver unique and superior value in the marketplace.
How to Leverage Your MDP to Create a Successful Marketing Strategy
Let’s change the word “capacity” to “competency” or “capability”. What is the capability of your company to provide unique and superior value? Now that’s the question; that is the key to everything. You must answer this cornerstone question before you do anything. Before you build your website, before you start a social media campaign, before you throw any money behind a marketing strategy. Once you figure out those benefits, you have to ask yourself are those benefits based on the hot buttons of your prospects? What are the problems that your prospects have and don’t want, or what are the results that they want and don’t have?
Once you know who your target customer is, down to what kind of car they drive, you have identified your customer avatar. Then you need to learn where they are; that’s your target rich environment. Now you’re discovering what their hot button items are and what the benefits are that you offer that can solve their challenge. You need to give them what they don’t have but they want or whatever solves the problem that they have and don’t want.
How do you discover how much more effective your strategy is going to be when your MDP is defined? Your MDP statement needs to be put into the marketplace. It promises to solve particular challenges for your particular client avatar(s). Once you do that, writing copy for your website is going to be easier, running your social media campaigns is going to be easier, and going to networking events and giving your elevator pitch is also going to be a whole lot more effective.
We also dive into topics including:
Why you need to create an ideal client avatar and how to go about it.
- How to structure your business to meet your market’s demand.
- What you need to do once you define your ideal client avatar.
- The three things that prospects need to see before doing business with you.
- More ways to differentiate yourself in your marketplace.
- The minimum things people want or they’re not going to do business with you.
- The four step strategy to discover and launch your MDP and dominate your market.
- The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to create your MDP.
…and more golden nuggets of advice!
You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea”
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About My Guest
Ed Middlebrooks is a business strategist, data tactician, and the founder of Elite Profit Coach—a business advisory firm built to turn struggling entrepreneurs into dominant market players.
Through his proprietary approach and intent data engine RealSpeak.ai, Ed tracks over 70 billion buyer behaviors every week to identify exactly where, when, and how his clients should strike. Armed with cutting-edge software, persuasive marketing systems, and decades of hands-on experience in IT, real estate, and high-stakes consulting, Ed delivers results that defy convention.
He’s not here to motivate—he’s here to install clarity, strategy, and unstoppable momentum into businesses that are ready to scale with certainty.