Staying Competitive in Business: What Makes You Different

Let’s face it – we live in a competitive world. Our competitors are right in our very own communities and well, the Internet has made us into one big community. The fact is that it’s more difficult than ever before to stand apart from the competition.

So what’s a person to do in order for their business to survive, and even thrive, in the face of massive local AND global competition?

It’s quite simple really.

We are all aware that many businesses market and sell on one premise and that is that their product or service is BETTER than what is being offered by the competition.
That’s right, better and why, well because they say so, that’s why!

It’s gotten so that most of us don’t really pay much attention to this sort of in-your-face boastful marketing and simply let our inner resistance (aka inertia) remind us that “the devil I know is better than the devil I don’t” and hence, we stay mired in place buying just what we are used to buying.

But what if we changed it up just a bit and instead of telling everyone what makes us better we told them what makes us different?

What comes next is truly the most important part of the selling / persuading process. When you explain your points of difference you must demonstrate how these equate to an improvement in the prospect’s situation. If there is no improvement then why should they consider making a switch? It’s risky and without any perceived improvements the old WIIFM (what’s in it for me?) comes into play.

So think about how you market and sell. Do you consciously point out your points of differentiation when speaking with prospects? Do you include your points of differentiation in your marketing and sales materials?

Perhaps most importantly, do you KNOW what these points of differentiation are? Why not survey your employees, referral sources and a random sampling of your clients and find out from them what they think makes your product or service different. What you learn might surprise you but one thing is for certain, your competition is not going away. The world is growing smaller, honorable and competent competitors are here to stay, and if you can develop strong points of differentiation you will be able to stand strong and prevail.