Some types of business have more competition than others. The obvious ones that spring into my mind are accountants, web designers, marketing agencies, copywriters, financial advisors and so on. If you were to type one of those into Google you would get a very long list of potential businesses that you could choose from. So how do you differentiate yourself from your competition if you are in a very competitive sector?
The thing you absolutely shouldn’t do, as a service based business, is to use price to distinguish yourself from your fellow businesses. If you do that you will rapidly become a commodity and you will attract clients who are after the cheapest option rather than the best.
Instead you need to find a way of doing it that doesn’t cripple your bank balance.
I personally believe that competition is a state of mind. Humour me for a few sentences and read on…
I believe, as individuals, we are all wonderfully unique so it would be reasonable to extrapolate that into the way we do business, as our personalities show through our businesses and are reflected in how we interact with our clients and how we deliver our service then our business must also be unique.
So therefore the challenge is finding a way to articulate that uniqueness rather than thinking that we are the same as our competitors.
What tends to happen is that people go very “samey” with their marketing, forget their uniqueness and merge into the competitive noise that is their marketplace. Have you?
When I come across someone who could broadly be considered a competitor I actually smile inwardly because it means I have to be really good as describing my uniqueness. So rather than getting concerned about the competitor I use it to fuel my performance.
After all “people buy from people”, and that is incredibly true in service businesses. Imagine you are an accountant and you are standing in a line-up of 20 accountants. You all offer the same service but you are a mix of ages, from different backgrounds with different experiences. You all have to do a 60 second pitch to a prospective client and you can’t say the usual “I do tax returns, I can help you be more tax efficient blar blar blar”. What would you say? How would you stand yourself apart from the crowd?
The answer…you would draw from your experiences and your personality. You would say the type of business you work best with, you would say something that was memorable. You would attempt to connect on a person to person level with the prospect and not a business to business one.
So, is your current marketing very samey? Do you blend in with the blar blar blar noise of your market place? Have you lost your business identity?
What action are you going to take in the next 3 days to change that so you can stand out from the crowd?
There are numerous ways to distinguish yourself from your competition. Next week I’ll talk about going niche.
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