If someone walked up to you and said "you should make your business more like a snowflake" you'd probably think they were a little crazy. Do they think your business should be made from ice crystals? Be cold or melty? Fall from the sky? None of these seem like desirable business attributes.

But, there's one thing that each and every snowflake has that a small business should strive for—uniqueness. When the ice crystals that make up a snowflake all get together, they always assemble themselves in a new and different formation. Snowflakes always have a unique structure and a unique appearance.

Just like snowflakes, your business will have several different types of uniqueness. On the surface, you'll want your brand and marketing materials to look unique, so that when all of your materials go out, they can stand out from your competitions'.

Your business will have underlying structural elements that make you different. This will include how your business is put together, how you run your business, the products and services you offer, and all those sorts of business considerations that show up in your business plan.

But your business has one other type of uniqueness that snowflakes don't

And that's personality. This kind of uniqueness is a bit tricky for small businesses. The challenge is separating the personality of the business from the personality of the entrepreneur running the business.

Why bother with this distinction? It can help your business appear more professional, by establishing you as a business instead of just a freelancer. Positioning yourself as a company instead of just an individual can also help you command more respect and higher rates.

If you're planning to grow your company by hiring more people to work for you, then using your business uniqueness instead of your personal uniqueness will make you look less like a consultancy and more like a company. Positioning your business in that way from the beginning can help you to wean your clients from expecting to work with you personally. This can be invaluable as you add on staff.

How To Be Unique

Here's a simple plan that can help you overcome the uniqueness challenge:

1. Create a business and brand plan

A lot of small businesses skip this step because it seems pretty elementary. But the process of writing down things like your business structure, product and service offerings, competition, mission, vision, experience and marketing plans can help you unearth elements of your own uniqueness.

A business plan that's created for these purposes doesn't have to be "official sounding", or particularly long. All it has to do is to record your basic plans.

2. Identify your uniqueness

What is unique about you? That's actually one of the most difficult questions for anyone to answer. The reason why it's so hard to tell what's unique about you is that you typically do whatever it is that makes you unique naturally—and constantly. You do your unique behavior or skill so often, and so effortlessly, that you probably don't even notice you're doing it.

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