I visited a hydroponic gardening business today and was educated in all things tomatoes.  Who knew they grew higher than seven feet?  This business has some huge greenhouses, filled with row after row of tomatoes  –  several thousand plants, producing thousands of pounds of tomatoes annually.

Even though the tomatoes are organically grown, and picked red (true vine ripened!) they compete with the Mexican tomatoes that have been fertilized with who knows what (I don’t want to know,) and picked green.  Go figure.

How could that be?

These are the best tomatoes our area has ever seen.  This company has been in business for 35 years.  And yet even though they were doing organic before organic was cool, I’d guess that not one person in 50 could tell you who the company is, what they grow, where they’re located, etc., etc., etc.  This company might as well not exist for all intents and purposes.  And instead of making bank on the incredible story behind their product, they languish on the shelf next to the clearly inferior produce.

What we’re talking about is marketing.  Everyone has a story to tell.  These guys have an incredible story to tell.  And yet they’ve done virtually nothing to get the word out.  They have a very small, loyal following, but nothing like what it could be with a story.

No matter what your business is, you have a story (you really do, don’t you?)  What are you doing to differentiate yourself from the rest of the market by telling your story?  If you’re going to grow and build value into your brand, you’ve got to start telling that story to anyone who will listen and tell it over and over again until the whole world knows it by heart.  Only then will you reach your potential.

What’s your story?