I work with a lot of companies and get to see how business owners think about their businesses. Probably the hardest thing for most, is finding their core difference.
You know how it goes. Ask 10 business owners how they are different and 9 out of 10 will tell you, “It’s our service”. Sorry but unless you can be more specific and prove how your service is better, it really doesn’t help.
Think about it. When you are looking to hire a CPA, an IT company or a plumber (we needed one this week — $95 an hour. Ouch) how do you pick? For most people it is hard to know which one to chose. For sure, Angies List and other ranking services help but it shouldn’t be that hard.
I think for many businesses, when forced to pick a competitive difference there is a fear that they will be excluding some prospects.For example if I am a window installation company and I say I only do skylights that will exclude some potential customers.But if there are plenty of people with skylight needs, try to create a point of focus. If you specialize in sky lights you can out compete the generalists.
So what is your competitive difference?
