Take a good hard look at your website. Could it describe any of your competitors with just a few minor edits? It’s a common problem. Most companies simply focus on table stakes – better customer service, higher quality, superior attention to client needs – and end up with average, but not winning, results. Your target market must clearly understand what makes your company unique and why your products or services are worth paying more for.
Most companies struggle to choose one break-out value that is meaningful to their market. Why? Because it means they have to choose one critically important aspect of what they do and abandon a long, safe list of features (which just happens to be the same list of features that your competition uses.)
While there are many reasons that companies fail to grow profits as fast as they want, the overriding reason, in my opinion, is that they are undifferentiated. They have not given the market a clear and compelling reason to do business with them versus their competition. It feels much safer to make their products and services all things to all markets. Its feels less risky to not leave anything out of their message.
So over time, their website, their selling messages and their offer development becomes generic. And the market can only look to your price as a way to compare offerings. And that’s never a good thing.
So what should you do? At your next management meeting, ask your team the following five questions:
- Which of our products or services are the most unique?
- Which of our products or services are the most profitable?
- Which of our customers are the most satisfied?
- Which of our sales channels are the most profitable?
- Which of our activities are the most unique and distinctive?
White board the discussion, clarifying each response as it is added to the list. Ask each team member to select the three most compelling answers among all the questions and determine which themes rise to the top and what customer research you still need to conduct.
Want complementary help sorting through the answers to these 5 critical questions? Give me a call at 513-934-3302 to discuss your results and learn how to use customer and prospect interviews to validate your unique advantages and win more business.