be different or be dead: how to distinguish yourself in the faceless herd
TRANSCRIPT
BE DiFFERENT or be dead:
How to Distinguish Yourself in the Faceless Herd
BE DiFFERENT Agenda
How to …
*** DISTINGUISH
*** DOMINATE
***GROW
*** SURVIVE
It’s all about creating…
UNIQUENESSDISTINCTIONREMARKABILITYGASPWORTHINESS INDISPENSABILITYMEMORABILITYUNFORGETTABILITYAUTHENTICITY
The Competitive Herd…
• The herd is growing at a breathless rate• All seek the edge; advantage• And yet… undifferentiation is happening• Copying trumps uniqueness
The Competitive Herd…
• Product myopia: Incremental feature creep• ‘Round-the Corners’ to appeal to the many• Benchmarking – shortfall gaps
closed rather than differences created or enhanced.
Distinguish & Dominate
• To stand-out from the Herd…• If you can’t deliver VALUE which is
– RELEVANT (something people really care about), AND
– UNIQUE (something that ONLY you provide)
• You are in serious trouble!• In other words…..
Distinguish & Dominate
• If you’re not ReMARKABLE, you’re CoMMON, IgNORED and InVISIBLE
• If you’re not DiFFERENT, you’re DiSPENSABLE
• If you’re not DiFFERENT, you’re DEAD (or soon will be)
Distinguish & Dominate
• “You don’t become indispensable merely because you are different. But the only way to be indispensable is to be different” – Seth Godin, Linchpin
BE DiFFERENT Themes
• Strategy – Focus on EXECUTION• Marketing – Create VALUE Packages for The
WHO • Service – SERVE your Fans & deliver
Dazzling service experiences to them• Sales – Develop intimate RELATIONSHIPS
BE DiFFERENT - Strategy
• DISTINGUISH = EXECUTE• Dumb down your Strategy and ACT! • Answer 3 questions & you have your
strategy– HOW BIG do you want to be? – Top Line $$
– WHO do you want to SERVE? – The WHO
– HOW will you compete and WIN? VALUE; RELEVANCE; UNIQUENESS – The WHAT
The ONLY Statement
• The ultimate manifestation of BE DiFFERENT is the ability to express your distinction in The ONLY Statement
• “We are the ONLY ones that….”
The ONLY Statement
• “You don’t want merely to be the best of the best. You want to be the ONLY one’s who do what you do” – Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead
The ‘ONLY’ Statement
MUG Solutions, Vancouver:
‘We provide the ONLY solution that permanently stops people from depositing biohazard contaminants through manhole covers.’
CJSmusic, London Ontario:
“…is the ONLY music service in Canada that offers online music lessons and composition services for advertisers, filmmakers ..”
The ONLY Process
• The WHO – WHO to SERVE?• The WHAT – WHAT do you provide that is
relevant, compelling, remarkable, ‘gaspworthy’ and UNIQUE?
• The ONLY – craft your ONLY Statement• The TEST – is your ONLY RELEVANT? Is it
TRUE?• The Action – determine key steps to
implement your ONLY
BE DiFFERENT - Strategy
• Be ANAL about Execution– 20% plan; 80% execute
– Plan ‘just about right’;
– Execute flawlessly
– Bre Pettis on Done…
BE DiFFERENT - Strategy
• Cut the CRAP– Cut list/Keep list
– Beware of custodians of the past
– Eliminate the ‘Grunge’ preventing progress
– Customer Moments are untouchable
BE DiFFERENT - Strategy
• Focus. Focus. Focus– Roy’s Rule of 3
– Focus on the critical few
• Plan on the RunLearn and adjust your strategy
as you goBe ‘good’ at anticipating;
‘great’ at reactingPlan, Execute, Learn, Adjust, Execute …
BE DiFFERENT - Strategy
• Beware of Benchmarking– Best of class = ‘highest
common denominator’ to BE DiFFERENT from
– Baseline to Distinguish
– Copying = enemy of BE DiFFERENT
– Domination = distancing yourself from the herd
– BM to Improve, Yes, but NOT to Distinguish
Marketing Today…
– LAZY & BORING
– UNDIFFERENTIATED; INVISIBLE
– PRODUCT FEATURE CREEP
– BENCHMARKING TO COPY
– MASS MARKET MANIA
– ROUND-THE-CORNERS FOCUS
– TECHNO ADULATION
– VALUE BLUR
BE DiFFERENT - Marketing
• DISTINGUISH & DOMINATE = #1.CREATE VALUE …
• We are in the Value Creation Business, right?• Common sense but the competitive
herd generally doesn’t do it – the blur thinks product supply & price
A Word on VALUE…
• It’s NOT about what we produce, our technology and the cool things it can do
• It IS about – The impact what we produce has on The WHO and
their lives
– Creating memorable moments
– Injecting a dose of humanity in what we do
BE DiFFERENT - Marketing
• DISTINGUISH & DOMINATE = #2. FOCUS ON YOUR FANS
• The people who care about what you do, who are connected and will ‘Sneeze’ you to others
• Shed mass market thinking• The ‘average’ customer doesn’t exist• Covet small and smaller customer groups
BE DiFFERENT - Marketing
• The smaller the group, the more you know about each person in the group
• AND the more relevant you can become in what you provide them
• R (Individual) = 1/Size of Group
• ‘the Rule of 150… a simple rule of thumb that distinguishes a group with real social authority from a group with little power at all’ – Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point
BE DiFFERENT - Marketing
• Focus on expanding your loyal Fan base• Know your Top 10 FANS: high value customers • Know your ‘Sneezers’ and ‘Mavens’ who will spread the
word• Enable them to communicate among themselves and with
you• It’s about viral word-of-mouth epidemics
BE DiFFERENT - Marketing
• Another thought… do you have any BE DiFFERENT customers?– Eccentric
– Quirky
– Outliers
– Weird
• Look for unique Fans and serve THEM!
BE DiFFERENT - Marketing
• DISTINGUISH & DOMINATE = #3. PACKAGE VALUE
• Move from a product focus to VALUE-BASED PACKAGES
• Objective: DiFFERENT Branding • PREMIUM Pricing• Discounted bundles NOT ALLOWED
A Shift in emphasis…
The WHO
The Many
Value Pak
Product
VALUE Paks…
• VALUE Paks– Holistic perspective of The WHO: broader than a
features/benefit mind-set; the TOTAL person/organization– Problems solved– Shareholder value created– Experiences delivered *****– Happiness created– Memories produced
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BE DiFFERENT - Marketing
• VALUE Paks … Powered by– Customer Learning – continuous learning process– More than Market Research – To discover the Secrets of The WHO – Customer Secrets – Intimate, deep
knowledge of the person– Ask questions and LISTEN
BE DiFFERENT – Serving
• DISTINGUISH & DOMINATE = SERVANT LEADERSHIP
• Serve customers don’t ‘service’ them• Service cars not people!• Its not about imposing service policy on
them; its about serving them in a way that creates delightful experiences
• Allow the customer to control you
BE DiFFERENT – Serving
• Serving = CORE SERVICE + …– What they GET from you.. Dial tone, clean
hotel rooms, good food, completed flights
– Satisfy ‘em
– Meet expectations 24X7X52
– You get C’s
– If not, they will leave you in a HEARTBEAT
– And SCREAM how BAD you are to anyone who will listen!
BE DiFFERENT – Serving
• Serving = CORE SERVICE + SERVICE EXPERIENCE– How they FEEL
– DAZZLE ‘em with it
– Make it GASPWORTHY
– Leave ‘em BREATHLESS
– You get A’s
– Loyalty, Raving Fans & Sneezers
BE DiFFERENT – Serving
VARY THE TREATMENTVary how you treat people; BE Flexible Same treatment for all = mixed level of
satisfaction Different treatment = constant level of
satisfactionEach person is DiFFERENT I won’t GASP if I am treated like a cog
BE DiFFERENT – Serving
• The Dazzle Factors …1. Hire Human Being Lovers – Hire for
Goosebumps!
2. Kill Dumb Rules
3. Be flexible: empower Frontline to bend rules and ‘say yes’
4. Provide Dazzling Recovery from your Service Blunders: Fix your screw-up and WOW ‘em – do the unexpected (secrets)
BE DiFFERENT – Sales
• DISTINGUISH & DOMINATE = RELATIONSHIPS & INTIMACY– Sell Relationships NOT Products
– Build intimate relationships with your FANS
• Long term success is about BONDING not flogging
BE DiFFERENT – Sales
• Build compensation plan on Relationship – building behaviors– Start at 80% sales revenue; 20% RB
– Increase RB component over time
• Get customers to rate sales people on RB competencies: Customer Report Card
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