Be Different or be dead

April 29, 2024

Differentiation Really Sucks Today. Here’s How To Nail It

Differentiation Really Sucks Today. Here’s How To Nail It.

Differentiation: What’s the problem?

UNDIFFERENTIATION IS HAPPENING!

▪️COPYING IS RAMPANT!

You can’t be different if you’re in the COPY MODE.
Everybody copies everybody. Benchmarking is used as the ‘tool of innovation’.

It’s dishonest.

“Strategic convergence means that over time most firms end up in the same place. 
This is what happens if you all read the same books, watch the same Ted talks, hire the same consultants and use the same case studies.  This is accelerated if you use benchmarking which involves watching what your competitors are doing and copying them.
Emulation gets you to parity. But when everyone does it it gets you to strategic hell.” — Herman Singh LinkedIn Post

▪️CLAPTRAP & NARCISSISM DOMINATE!

CLAPTRAP meaningless expressions still used to stake a competitive position:

BETTER, BEST, #1, LEADER, PREMIUM, MOST COMPELLING, MOST RELIABLE. GREAT TASTING. FIRST EVER, LOWEST COST, & MOST TRUSTED.

Examples…

“Canada’s largest and most reliable 5G network”

“America’s Most Popular Meal Kit.”

“The smartest way to get around.”

“The simplest path to customer delight.”

▪️ASPIRATIONS INUNDATE!

“We’re in business to save our home planet.”

“To inspire humanity – both in the air and on the ground.”

“Our mission is to make the world happier and healthier

“Champions of Customer Service”

Differentiation: What’s the solution?

“THE ONLY STATEMENT” — “WE ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO…”

▪️️The ONLY Statement answers the question “Why should I do business with you and not your competitors?”. It is a specific expression of what YOU promise THEM and clears the roadway of narcissists, aspirationalists and CLAPTRAP artists.
▪️The ONLY Statement is binary. It either exists or it doesn’t unlike CLAPTRAP and ASPIRATIONS.
▪️The ONLY Statement is measurable unlike CLAPTRAP and ASPIRATIONS.
▪️The ONLY Statement is about THEM not YOU!. It speaks to someone else and what they need from you. It’s NOT about the value and benefits YOU think you deliver.
▪️The ONLY Statement is NOT a tactic. It’s an expression of strategy. It exists to serve a strategic purpose and must have a Strategic Game Plan to provide context for it.

The ONLY Statement Process

#1. Declare your growth goals — HOW BIG do you want to be?

#2. Determine the Customer Groups that have the potential to deliver your growth goals — WHO do you intend to SERVE? Focus on the critical few Groups; avoid mass market thinking here.

#3. Determine what the WHO CARES about, not what they “need”. The “need” space typically has many competitors and prices are forced downward making it tough to maintain healthy margins. Definitely a place you don’t want to hang out.

If, on the other hand, you are able to discover what your WHO CRAVES, DESIRES, COVETS AND LUSTS FOR, you will find few competitors and the ability to charge higher prices because people are generally willing to pay more to satisfy their emotional appetites.

Have a conversation with your WHO to uncover what they CRAVE. “What keeps you awake at night?” to a business is a great way to start the discovery process.
On the consumer side, gentle probes around their lifestyle will yield the desired result.

#4. Draft your ONLY Statement—“We are the ONLY ones who…”—by either matching your existing skills and competencies with the CRAVINGS of the WHO or by defining what you NEED TO BE in order to satisfy their CRAVINGS.

To the latter point, you may have to reframe your business to be able to deliver what your WHO CRAVES because you’re currently devoid of the required capabilities to do it.

“Lawn Care Services Co. is the ONLY service partner who delivers personalized home care services to homeowners.”

“Marine Co is the ONLY complete service partner committed to delivering solutions to grow a boat dealer’s business.”

#5. “Unpack” your ONLY Statement. Provide more detail on some of the words and phrases contained in your ONLY to enhance the understanding of exactly what it means.
This granularity is critical in order to avoid the CLAPTRAP syndrome and be able to communicate it to your WHO in clear concise terms.

In the Lawn Care Services ONLY Statement, the unpacking exercise could look like this:

▪️By “service partner” we mean…
▪️By “personalized” we mean…
▪️By “home care services” we mean…
▪️By “homeowners” we mean…

Don’t be afraid to provide too much unpacking information. The more detail you provide the clearer it is and the easier it is to communicate to your employees and your WHO.

#6. Treat your ONLY as a draft. Your ONLY Statement is never done, it’s always a draft and will need to be tweaked when circumstances change — competitor moves, customer behavior, economic fluctuations, political policies.

Be prepared to shift ONLY emphasis when you spot changes.

#7. Test your ONLY. Before patting yourself on the back for the great work you’ve done, TEST your ONLY Statement to make sure it accurately addresses what your WHO CRAVES. Talk to a selected number of the WHO directly and discuss it with your frontline employees.

If it’s not relevant to what your WHO CRAVES, keep working on it until it works for THEM.

There is so much clutter out there on “The Brand Promise” and “Unique Selling Propositions” that do little but propagate the differentiation problem.

They don’t establish differentiation because they communicate what YOU think about YOU.

Breakaway to The ONLY Statement. Why? Because I invented it and it took a startup to A BILLION IN SALES!

Cheers,
Roy
My 100 Podcast Shows that will make your business and your career incredibly successful.

My Podcast Show Audacious Moves to A BILLION will share the specific Moves I made to achieve jaw-dropping growth in an insanely competitive internet business.

”The Audacious Un-heard of Ways I Took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES” is the latest in my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series.

• Posted 4.29.24 at 05:38 am by Roy Osing
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April 8, 2024

What’s Wrong With Being “Number 1” in the World?

What’s Wrong With Being “Number 1” in the World?

Claiming that you’re “Number 1” at anything is not only misleading, it’s disingenuous.

What’s the definition of Number 1

Who measures the results among all contenders for the title?

Who decides on who gets the title? What are their qualifications to be the judge? Who decides they should be the judge? All contenders or just the claimant?

It’s easy to (disingenuously) claim you’re Number 1, but it doesn’t mean anything credible in terms of defining what separates one organization from another in the market.

Number 1 fits in the list of CLAPTRAP expressions that are (way too often) used to answer the question: “Why should I do business with YOU and not your competitors?”

Words like these dominate the competitive claims sky and render literally NO value in helping people choose one company over another: “better”, “best” and “leader”.

AND, Number 1 is one of the most NARCISSISTIC expressions out there.

”Number 1” is YOUR view of YOU.

How does that serve your customers?

It doesn’t.

It merely established you in the Number 1 herd of narcissists.

And it’s lazy marketing. It’s easy to say it when you have nothing concrete that makes you unique.

It’s hard work creating a unique competitive claim that is relevant and meaningful to the customers you intend to SERVE.

The way through the meaningless maze of aspirational thinking is to create The ONLY Statement…. “We are The ONLY Ones who….” to separate your organization from your competitors.

“You don’t want merely to be the best of the best, you want to be the ONLY ones who do what you do — Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead

Cheers,
Roy
My 100 Podcast Shows that will make your business and your career incredibly successful.

My Podcast Show Audacious Moves to A BILLION will share the specific Moves I made to achieve jaw-dropping growth in an insanely competitive internet business.

”The Audacious Un-heard of Ways I Took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES” is the latest in my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series.

• Posted 4.8.24 at 05:10 am by Roy Osing
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April 1, 2024

5 Epic Ways to Grow the Value of Your Business

5 Epic Ways to Grow the Value of Your Business.

Are you focused on growing the value of your business?

You should be.

Working ON your business needs to take priority at some point over working IN it.

These 5 value-building Moves we made to create a BILLION DOLLAR organization had amazing results; they can work for you too!

#1. Differentiate your business from your competitors — Can value be created in your business if you are the same as everyone else in the markets you serve?

You need to be The ONLY ONE who does what you do.

#2. Focus on growing top line revenue — Revenue trends tell you how the market “feels” about the value you deliver.
Use it as the main indicator of whether or not you’re growing sustainable value in your business.

#3. Stop! doing yesterday’s relevance — You don’t have unlimited resources and you can’t afford to be spending time on activities that don’t add value to your business.
Whack! the stuff that isn’t on your strategy.

#4. Build relationships for long term growth; don’t chase short term revenue kicks — Set your sights on creating long term sustainable value; short term revenue bursts are fine but if you can’t maintain that level of performance over the long term they’re not value-building at all.

Put in place a relationship-building culture rather than one that focuses on sales.

Sustainable value—and growing gross revenue— is created from a customer base that is loyal to you and trusts that you will solve their problems/exceed their expectations over the long run.

#5. Execute first; plan second — Sure your plan is important, but don’t get mesmerized by it. Trying to get it “perfect”, whatever the hell that means.

While you’re trying to get your direction exactly right, your smart competitors are bypassing you because they’re executing their “imperfect” plan.

Spend 20% of your time to get your plan “just about right” and 80% of your time on how to execute it.

Cheers,
Roy
My 100 Podcast Shows that will make your business and your career incredibly successful.

My Podcast Show Audacious Moves to A BILLION will share the specific Moves I made to achieve jaw-dropping growth in an insanely competitive internet business.

”The Audacious Un-heard of Ways I Took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES” is the latest in my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series.

• Posted 4.1.24 at 01:51 am by Roy Osing
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March 25, 2024

13 Proven Ways to Have Insanely Audacious Marketing

13 Proven Ways to Have Insanely Audacious Marketing.

Audacious marketing will get you A BILLION IN SALES.

Trust me. It worked for me.

These thirteen Breakaway Moves lit up the marketing landscape and delivered delirious results.

#1. Be the ONLY ones who do what you do — You must be different from your competitors in a way that matters to your customers—The WHO.

And STOP using CLAPTRAP words like “best”, “better” and “Number 1” to describe your so-called Unique Selling Proposition—USP.
They are absolutely USELESS. They mean NOTHING. They satisfy your narcissistic view of YOU.

If you’re not “the ONLY one who does what you do”, you’re FAKING it and have nothing special to offer at all.

#2. Focus on the WHO—not mass markets—and what they CRAVE — Epic marketers choose a FEW select group of customers to serve, and excel at discovering & delivering what they DESIRE—not need.

#3. Implement initiatives to build relationships with customers, STOP flogging products and services — Sustainable marketing is all about creating trust with people with the long term in sight. An incessant desire to push products AT customers will turn them off early. There goes your revenue stream!

#4. Focus on customer LOYALTY rather than acquisition — Consistent revenue growth comes from maintaining a loyal base of customers. Growing them by satisfying what they CRAVE, and having them as an amazing source of reviews and referrals. Invest in today’s customers.

Have faith they will deliver you the growth you need.

#5. Reframe the importance of the competition: Create Barriers to customer EXIT rather than erecting barriers to competitive entry — This is a cultural component of audacious marketing. Where do you place your attention? Keeping competitors out or keeping customers from leaving. Re-read Point #4.

#6. Reserve your Special Marketing Deals for loyal customers. Don’t use them as a customer acquisition tool. NEVER! — If you lure me to you by giving me a special offer, what makes you think I won’t leave you for a better one?
And do you really think your loyal customers won’t find out you’re treating them unfairly?

Give your head a shake! Invest in the people who have given you their money for the past 5 years.
Don’t try to get the “promiscuous ones” who will leave you in a heartbeat for someone else for a better deal.

#7. Adopt a Premium Pricing Strategy by ADDING value — Simple audacious pricing principle: epic value commands premium prices; mediocre value produces “herd” pricing with commodity status and resultant low margins.
Where would you like to play? The real question is “What value can I add to sustain HIGH prices?” and not “What can I do to lower prices to compete?”.

#8. Find out how people “FEEL” about the value you are delivering — Start a new marketing cult: research and discover how people FEEL about what you are delivering to them.
Market research is flawed. It deals with mass homogeneous groups of individuals (rather than individuals) and seeks to discover what they NEED (rather than how they feel).

People buy on how they FEEL. Why not invest research dollars to FEELINGS?

#9. STOP bundling products and services and discounting prices! — Re-read Point #7. Adding products together and discounting the overall price is competing on price in disguise.

If you must bundle, combine product elements to generate VALUE greater than the sum of their parts and charge a premium price for it.
The end game is to create VALUE PACKAGES that have sufficient “juice” among target customers to generate more revenue and greater stickiness to prevent customer exit. Re-read Point #5.

#10. Create value for people that satisfies what the CRAVE, not need — Shift away from needs-based marketing NOW!
Competition in the “need space” is intense and plentiful, and prices are always under pressure (with margin-squeezing the result).

On the other hand, there are very few—if any—organizations that play in the CRAVINGS space, where the objective is to discover what people desire, covet and lust for. The CRAVINGS space is exceedingly attractive for enhancing customer loyalty with personalized solutions with a high FEELINGS FACTOR—re-read Point #8—and charging higher prices as a result.

#11. Increase customer share not market share — Re-read Point #4. Audacious marketing’s prime directive is to increase the amount of business you do with your EXISTING customers, not increasing the number of customers you have.
If you have 40% of Customer A’s business, for example, your objective is to increase your share of their overall spend in your product and service category to a higher level.

Do you know what your Customer Share is the WHO Groups—re-read Point #2—you have chosen to serve?

You must track this type of performance data, set targets and continue to measure the results of your growth efforts.

#12. Have a direct Line of Sight between your marketing strategy and the Strategic Game Plan of your organization — Dysfunction results when people in an organization are not in sync with its business plan. The plan isn’t clear, or it hasn’t been explained at a granular level as to what it means to the various functions in the organization—marketing, sales, service, finance.

Audacious marketing teams make it a priority to translate the organization’s business strategy into what it means SPECIFICALLY to the marketing team. What new actions and priorities must the marketing team take on to serve the new direction of the company and what do they need to STOP? How should scarce marketing resources be redeployed?

#13. Implement Internal Report Cards to measure marketing performance inside the organization — Marketing has internal customers, particularly Sales. The question is how well does the marketing team meet the needs of the sales force?
Does sales have all the marketing strategy details they need to effectively execute their role in the strategy? Do they have a direct Line of Sight to the marketing plan? Re-read Point #12.

The vehicle I used to measure marketing’s inside performance was the “Internal Report Card” which Sales and other departments completed regularly. The Report Card asked the recipient how well the marketing team performed (Poor, Fair, Average, Good, Excellent ratings) in areas like: responsiveness, relevance of information they provide, quality of competitive information, product and service information.

The Internal Report Card worked. It helped improve marketing’s performance and the execution of the organization’s strategy.

Audacious marketing took a startup to A BILLION IN SALES. Its growth potential is unimaginable.

If you are driven to grow your business, these 13 proven steps will get you there.

Cheers,
Roy

Check out My 100 Podcast Shows that will make your business and your career incredibly successful.

My Podcast Show Audacious Moves to A BILLION will share the specific Moves I made to achieve jaw-dropping growth in an insanely competitive internet business.

”The Audacious Un-heard-of Ways I Took a Startup to A BILLION IN SALES” is the latest in my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series.

• Posted 3.25.24 at 01:30 am by Roy Osing
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