“If you ignore your uniqueness and try to be everything for everybody, you quickly undermine what makes you different,” says Jack Trout, a leading brand expert. To be competitive in today’s global economy, entrepreneurs have to offer what he calls “a unique value proposition”.
“It’s about managing client perceptions and ensuring the customer has a great buying experience,“ he explains. In this regard, ask yourself: Does your service or product touch customers’ hearts? Is it memorable, simple and focused? Does it have a strong enough emotional reason for customers to use and re-use your services?
Entrepreneurs enter the mindspace of customers, competing with everyday concerns. To make an impact, the entrepreneur’s uniqueness, or added value proposition, has to be effectively communicated. It has to be distinctive and sustainable. What is the distinctive difference that separates you and your services from your competitors? Is your difference articulated in a way that emotionally resonates with the customers’ perception of outstanding value?
A major factor that differentiates successful and profitable enterprises from the mediocre is the ability to package services and products in an innovative way, and market and sell them effectively. Selling is key: no matter how great the business and marketing strategy is, until someone sells, nothing happens. Simply put, sales differentiate and make customers more discerning.
A customer who expresses interest has to be persuaded on the benefits in order to end up being a satisfied buyer.
By aggressively focusing on selling and income-generating activities, the entrepreneur can find, keep, grow and increase a profitable client base. By engaging with customers in a systematic, ongoing basis and asking appropriate questions, you can establish specific needs. You can then communicate differentiating criteria to customers so they weigh up and positively decide in favour of your offering.
As an entrepreneur, do you possess the following differentiating factors:
- Are you a well-defined specialist?
- What perceived needs do you want to respond to by offering customised solutions?
- What is the level of your intellectual capital and of trend-setting in your line of business
- Are you the pioneer of brand-new technology?
- Do you have innovative solutions?
- Is there supporting evidence to back up your delivery claims?
- Does the differentiation reflect in numbers, increased revenue, minimised costs, enhanced quality and profitability?
Differentiation is primarily a mindset; it’s an unstoppable attitude backed by a successful strategy to excel.