differentiation

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The Importance of Differentiating
When you differentiate yourself, your product or service, you lose a lot of concern over competition. Why? Because when you do it right and define how your company or product is different, and the value that's perceived about you, you have a strength you can build on. You're different.

SMB-Speak: Getting your Foot in the Door
As we all know, small businesses believe that differentiation is a strategic advantage when competing with large corporations for a customer's business. Talking about differentiation is one thing; demonstrating it is another altogether.

Is a Competitive Edge Good Enough?
Words describe strategic intent and I have a real problem applying 'soft' or 'incremental' words to the critical business function of sustainable differentiation and survival.

Empowered Customers Rule!

There is a compelling case for Customerizing your organization in current market and economic conditions. Making a right-angled turn from pushing products and services at people to determining what their individual desires are and creating VALUE to enhance their lives. Yet it is amazing to me how many companies don't get it. They continue to market the way they have done in the past, believing what worked then will get them to where they need to get to in the future. It won't work. We all need to look at the evidence and then take action to renew our organizations to SERVE customers not flog at them.

Updated: The Age/Entrepreneurship Myth
I pretty much entirely disagree with Fred Wilson's implication earlier this week that age is an obstacle to entrepreneurship. It may be an obstacle to a particular kind of entrepreneurship -- venture-backed companies where you give up equity to parental figures with money -- but implying anything broader than that is silly and counter to the facts.

So You Think You’re Different?
Being different, or more accurately, having a point of differentiation that matters to a market, is one of the most critical marketing strategies for the small business.

Be the Red Leaf
So I come back from my chilly morning run and am greeted by the site of one lone red leaf popping out of a sea of green ivy and decaying brown leaves - and I can’t help but take notice.

All Tweet and No Cattle
Today I’m going to take on a topic that may not be altogether popular in some social media circles, but it’s a message that small business owners need to wrestle with.

Stop Wasting Your Time With Social Media
If you have no precise marketing strategy, or even a simple set of marketing goals, social media participation will only serve as a glorious way to highlight that your business is precisely like every other business that says they do what you do. (That’s a nice way of saying you are doomed to compete on price.)

Collaboration – The New Competition
Over the coming years, we will see collaboration become the new competition. Markets around the world are crying out for collaboration as innovation and differentiation become scarce in a sea of commoditised products and services. Sales people who see themselves as collaborators, both internally (colleagues, departments) and externally (customers, competitors), will prosper more than ever.

Feature/Benefit Selling Does Not Replace Effective Questioning

Executive Summary: Buyers are only concerned about product features that are relevant to their needs. Sales reps that focus on creating alignment with buyers, and avoid using a ‘feature dump’ as their primary means to sell, will connect with buyers. This is accomplished when reps focus on the unique capabilities of their product as the best means by which to improve the buyer’s current situation.

Define Your Uniqueness

So many business owners beat their heads against the wall, wondering why their business isn’t working. They try everything - new sales scripts, better ads, and new products to no avail. In most cases the reason things are not working is simple - there is not always enough business in the marketplace and very little reason for anyone to give it to you and not your competitors. What about your business? When you started, did you begin with a uniqueness – a real point of difference, or did you just start as a “me too” competitor? If you are a “me too” business you will have a tough time.

The Internet killed the Telemarketing star
How many times have you picked up the phone expecting to speak with a potential buyer - to only hear the desperate words of a seller introducing themselves and asking for the owner of the business? Yet another selfish salesman hell-bent on taking your valuable time and energy to try and sell you something you don't need or ever want.

No Cost Value
No Cost Value (NCV) is the value your salespeople create for your customers' that requires little, if any, investment, other than - time, some creative thought, and a willingness to demonstrate a positive attitude.

It's The Experience, Stupid!
Take a few minutes and read through all the statements of value on your web site and in your recent proposals. Think about the value propositions you have articulated during customer calls over the last few months. Do they strike you as static statements? Or do they communicate a sense of a living, dynamic, ongoing, integrated, valuable experience?

Another spin on Value Propositions
Quite often the inspiration for a great sales idea comes from a source way outside our industry or normal frame of reference. What follows is a story about a really creative value proposition. How can you use its message for your own business?

The Problem With Plans
You'd change course rather than fly into a thunderstorm, wouldn't you? Even if that storm wasn't in your flight plan? Markets change, customers change, people change - plans should change too.

How do I create a radical ‘Call to Action?’
Step 1: Find out what your competitors' are all doing and do something radically different, or radically better. Remember, in competitive markets with everyone selling the same thing in the same way 'radical differentiation' can mean as little as a 10% margin in value proposition.

May the Abilities Rest in Peace
The bottom line is that to truly communicate with our audiences, we need to stop using the same words that everyone drags along, and start thinking creatively, originally and most of all - think and talk like a customer.

Emotional intimacy - The Essential Daily Requirement for the health and longevity of your relationship.
“Into-me-you-see” Without intending to stereotype the genders, as soon as I sent out a “survey” and asked people to share their views on intimacy, somehow most of the women sent in their feelings of what Intimacy means to them on an emotional level and most of you guys out there sent me stuff that made me blush.

A Small Hole Can Sink A Big Ship - The Poor Performer and Other Like Obstacles

Of all the non-actions likely to negatively impact on a team’s morale, it seems none is quite so damning as a failure to respond promptly to a team member’s poor performance. Research consistently contends that business leaders lose most kudos when poor performance is left unattended and poor performers are able to continue their inappropriate behaviour without repercussion. Whilst many leaders may opt to avoid the situation of a poor performer and choose instead to alienate them in the hope they will leave of their own accord, the disharmony created through such a strategy is frequently so great that it infiltrates into other facets of the business.

The Specialization-Differentiation Imperative
How to carve out your own slice in the market and charge more, attract more clients and enjoy greater confidence.

Differentiation-Based Leadership: Three questions that every leader must ask

The more competition you face, the greater the need to highlight the differentiation -- the unique advantage of your product or service -- in order to succeed in the marketplace. Differentiation-based leadership places the onus of grasping, defining and communicating that differentiation on the shoulders of the leader, and extends the concept to encompass every area of business -- including the leader him or herself. Using differentiation as the central principle of strategic competitive advantage, these are the three questions that every leader must ask.

Cash Cow or Sacred Cow?

Getting down to the nitty gritty about a client's 'best sellers' is one of the first things I jump into when I start a new project. More often than not, those 'best sellers' are the source of more problems than anyone would expect. How can that be? It's the biggest seller (which is easy to prove with revenues), the cash cow, sacred cow, the product that delivers major corporate differentiation. Right? Sometimes it is. But more often it's not. It may generate the most revenue - but you have to look deeper, much deeper, to find out how the product is impacting your business.

Buzz Marketing
Buzz Marketing. Why does it work, but more importantly, how can I get it to work for me?

Are the only people that CALL YOU Telemarketers?

How frustrating is it when the phone rings, (RING, RING!) and you say to yourself; “great an opportunity I don’t have to chase!” Then the person on the other end of the phone opens the conversation with; “Am I speaking with the business owner?” and you realise, quickly, that it’s yet another (bloody) telemarketer! “Damn you telemarketer!” you say under your breath, as you politely tell them you’re not interested and promptly hang up.

Customers don’t care about you unless you’re naked. They just don’t.
Why should they? You’re not that interesting to them fully clothed. Appropriately decorated in the same suit and tie, or tight black jeans and teased hair, as everyone else in your industry.

7 Secrets to Online Business Success
I've done more here than just cover 7 principles of online success. Yes, I do lay out these important secrets, but I also illustrate them with examples so you can see how they have proven themselves to work in real life situations.

MARKETING ONLINE - GET TRAFFIC TO YOUR BLOG FOREVER

As a business blogger you must be having the desire to have many people like and come more times to your blog. You need to drive and maintain traffic. Traffic drives you. You also need to enjoy high search engine optimization. For you to achieve this, you must make your blog a brand. A brand so strong, that it will stand out against your competitors. But how do you make your blog a brand? Many times people use the word brand without actually understanding what a brand mean. The marketers define a brand as:- • A name or a term • A sigh, symbol

Best Buy Employees Deliver a Strong Brand. So Can You.
"It's not about the stuff. It's about the people."

Pricing, Branding and Communications – Key Elements of Excellent Marketing
Inadequate attention to price and inappropriate pricing strategies based on poor understanding of customer need and value are eating away at companies' bottom-lines.

The Modern Marketer’s Milking (S)Tool
The three-legged (s)tool for marketing success: Segmentation, Differentiation, Implementation

Customer Intimacy Leads to Customer Loyalty
Gallup research shows that satisfied customers do not come back. Only loyal customers come back. Have you ever had a previous customer come back? Why? What made your customer return; your prices, your service or your installers? What does turn a satisfied customers into a loyal customers? “Developing customer loyalty is the most important foundation for ongoing business growth.”

Why Companies Go Bust – 10 Tips To Rescue It
More companies are going bust in this economic downturn. You need to read this before you become one of them.

Making It Easy To Buy From You
How intelligent retail design and branding can lead to more sales

How to Position Your Company in the Minds of Consumers
In most industries there are no heroes, just choices. So rather than try to be all things to all people, business owners need to proactively position their company and define their points of differentiation to the consumer. Positioning draws the attention of your target market and reduces the chance that your competitors will define who you are, a situation no business owner wants to experience.

Show Me The Money – What Your Business Plan Must Include
You’ve got your business idea, got the time to start the new business and your entrepreneur spirit is fired up but you need money and are off to the bank or a friendly angel investor with your business plan. Wait before you do, make sure that you have included this information.

5 Types of Questioning

Executive Summary There is no sense asking aimless questions. Sales reps must be responsible and ask questions that serve a specific purpose. They need to understand the type of questions they are asking, and the resulting information they can expect in return. Sales reps that can master the five types of questioning will be able to develop a detailed account of their buyer’s situation and the solution they desire.

Selling What's Different
Selling what's different is better than selling on your pricing. Just remember selling what's different doesn't come naturally to most salespeople. Here are six ideas to stimulate your thinking.

Using the Phone to Gain a Competitive Edge
How well does your organization answer the phone? It may seem like an odd question, but it could be very relevant to the success of your small business.

The Science of Differentiation

There is enough evidence in the annals of branding to convince even the most skeptical small business owner that differentiation is a critical component of building a successful brand – yet there are very few that embrace the concept. For those of you that are not convinced, there is another way to look at differentiation - through brain science. The human brain, in its mysterious glory, thrives on differentiation.

Differentiation - Dare to be Different
It’s good to be different! Standing out from the crowd is essential to a successful marketing strategy; growth, profit and even survival depend on our ability to be different to our competitors. It's a challenge that is particularly difficult for service based companies. So how do you stand out from the crowd?

Price Is an Issue Its Not THE Issue
You’ve hired a dedicated sales force. Your company has the best product. Great service is delivered after the sale. So why is your team losing sales to “low price?” Colleen Stanley of SalesLeadership explains four reasons great companies run into this problem.

Is the Government of Canada's Shared Services Strategy a Threat to Small Business (Survey Result 1)
Many key stakeholders both within and external to the Government of Canada (GoC) see a shared services strategy as a threat to the Small-Medium Enterprise community? Do you believe that the current GoC shared services is a threat? If yes, why? If no, why?

Addressing Differentiation: Can You Turn Today’s Tough Economy into Your Best Year?

Getting clients and building your base through referrals is essential in the insurance field. Yet, it is harder than ever to be able to do just that. Clients guard their time and seem more reluctant than ever to release their friend’s names even if you have done a fabulous job for them. As technology has taken over, many clients have turned to the Internet to scan companies and prices putting the major control of the situation in their hands, not yours. So can you turn this around?

How To Demonstrate Trust And Credibility In Business And Position Yourself As An Expert

With so many businesses all looking the same and offering the same, it is critical that you are able to offer a clear, competitive edge, such that it resonates with your audience and is a point of differentiation built around your clients' needs and wants. But how do you do this? In this article, I want to discuss and explore what you can actually put 'out there' to demonstrate trust, credibility and most of all position yourself as an expert.

Position your brand as category leader
Mick Danskin tells you how to gain category leadership by naming your own category based on your product or service's unique features and benefits.

Management and Business Plans

In addition to being a strategy planning document and a roadmap to success, a business plan is also a living-or “evergreen”-document that functions as an evolving management plan. Included in this article are a review of eight key elements in a comprehensive business plan and a look at how a good business plan functions with regards to business definition, competitive differentiation and strategic goals.

Brand Revitalization
Building a strong brand takes commitment, time and hard work, but the result is one of the most valuable assets a company can own. That said, not all assets are static, and your brand image is no exception.

Brand Positioning
With your own core values and those of your company now clearly established or reaffirmed and woven into your mission statement (see related article: Brand Matters), it’s an excellent time to assess or reassess the positioning of your brand.

Differentiation – Smart Marketing Strategies for the Solo Entrepreneur

Are you ever frustrated or hesitant when you talk to prospective customers because you can’t readily explain why they should come to you rather than go to your competitors? Sure, you might have your 30-second elevator speech, but then they ask you that dreaded question, “So what makes you different?” Then, all those self-doubts creep in, and you just aren’t sure what to say. Differentiation can boost confidence--yours in yourself and that prospective customer’s confidence in you!

Tips to Differentiation
Doing something much better and valuing your customers are distinct advantages that will lead you to the winners circle in time. This article outlines some tips and hints to reaching your differentiation goals.

Account Planning, Management & Development
As markets tighten and market competition increases, it becomes increasingly difficult for companies to achieve product differentiation in their market place. As such, businesses will find it harder and harder to optimise their profits unless they develop effective strategies to achieve differentiation. One way to accomplish this is through the enhancement of customer intimacy.

Solving the Customer Service Puzzle
Learn the simple rules of customer service to assist your organization create the differentiation required to create allure.

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