March 29, 2010

Better, Best vs. DiFFERENT

Look around at the competitive claims being made these days, and most of them will look something like:
- ‘We offer the best network’
- ‘Our customer service is better than our competition’

These types of claims don’t cut it:
- they are aspirational statements that don’t provide any meaningful guidance to people in the organization in terms of what they should do and how they should behave to ‘live’ the strategy.
- they don’t give customers any meaningful information that helps them understand the competitive claim. For example the largest Telecom Company in Canada claims to have the ‘best network’ among their competitors. Is this useful information to a customer? Does it explain the characteristic of their network that makes it the best?
- they are difficult if not impossible to prove particularly in terms that address customer needs. In my experience, claims of this nature attract internal organizational statistics to ‘prove’ the claim and not specific attributes that are compelling to customers. They talk to the internal audience rather than the external one.

BE DiFFERENT competitive claims, on the other hand force you to define in precise terms how you are unique among your competitors. Through the use of The only Statement a detailed assessment of the competition is done and is correlated with the critical desires of the customer groups you have chosen to serve. And, included in the analysis mix is the competencies and skills of the organization. ‘Telecom Company X has the only network that ....’ is the claim that we need to aspire to.

It informs the organization what specifically it want to do that is unique it tells the customer what specific value and benefits will be delivered to them and it provides a framework for measuring and proving the claim.

Winning is not about comparative and superlative claims in any event. They are not needed. You don’t have to be better than another company or best among your competitors to succeed and survive. You need to BE DiFFERENT.

Provide relevant, compelling and UNIQUE value to those you have chosen to serve and the spoils of the battle will flow your way.

Cheers, Roy

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Related Blog Articles
The Only Statement
Avoid Aspirational Claims

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Posted 3.29.10 at 08:27 am by Roy Osing | Read Comments (0) | Leave a Comment