Get Different

What is the difference between you and your nearest competitor – especially in the eyes of your customers and prospects?

Here are some stats often quoted and I used myself in a recent Mentor club newsletter:

Where do your customers go?

• 1% – Death
• 3% – Move House
• 5% – Buy from a Friend
• 9% – Sold by a Competitor
• 14% – Product/Price
• 68% Go Elsewhere Due to Perceived Indifference

Of course the answer to this last point is why not try to be different? In fact why not give up ‘trying’ and just be different?

How do you make your business different?   There are three generic business strategies to gaining a competitive advantage

1. Cost: Being the lowest cost producer
2. Differentiation: Seeking to be unique in your industry offering benefits valued by buyers
3. Target: concentrating on a segment or groups of segments in an industry.

These three are most powerful when you combine two or even all three of these strategies.  For example you can focus on a segment (geographically, industry and so on) and be the lowest cost provider or you could focus on a niche and differentiate.

To differentiate you need to consider what you do well vs what your competitors do well.  Develop your ideal scenario of what you can deliver and guarantee.  Consider what is most important to your customers, for example; in your industry what are the top 5 most important to your customers out of:

• Quality
• Price
• Reliability
• Safety
• Convenience
• Guarantee
• Speed of Service
• Customer Service
• Consistency
• Back Up Service
• Image
• Other?

FRANCHISE?  All this still applies.  Your franchisor will have a ‘brand’ and some sort of USP – make sure you understand it – but also how you fit in.  We are all different , we all run our businesses different and we all make out own choices – this comes out in our ‘version’ of a Franchise USP.  If you are in a franchise look at how you add the YOU to the USP, your local business.  You’re placing the Ad’s and they need to reflect how you do business.

And, while we are at it, these  are NOT USP’s:

• We offer a quality customer service
• We’ve been established for 18 years
• A broad range of expertise
• Prompt professional service
• Specialists in accountancy
• Building solutions
• We add value
• Supporting your business

These examples are full of empty words; they don’t describe to your prospect what’s in it for them

Re-Cap for USP:

• Reduce & remove the price competition – compete on your USP not price alone
• You don’t need to go out and invent the impossible to be unique. 
• You may not even have to do anything different to the competition. It may very well be about how you market and package your product – many of the best USP’s are not unique!
• If you are your product or service – a big part of your USP is you.  Think of USP as being your Unique Selling Personality! Especially true in many one / two person franchises
• When you market and sell – remove fear – use your USP to remove the fears people have of what could go wrong when buying your product or service

Regards

Peter