How does your offer differ from the competition?
"Wes, we're so much better than our competitors...we're more generous...we have a better warranty...we have better service...we're great once we get in front of a prospect...but we're having trouble reaching and getting in front of qualified prospects. Why???"
If your online advertising/SEM, SEO, promotional pieces, elevator pitch, opening lines, and your (lack of) inbound marketing are "safe" and "just like the competition," how will your prospects know you are any better or offer any additional value?
If the marketplace can't determine how you are better, more generous, offer a better warranty and better service by you what you say and how you say it, and how you conduct yourselves when you engage with your ideal clients, then they'll assume you're the same as everyone else.
Being The Same Forces You To Be Cheap
When you're the same—or appear the same—as your competitors, then the determining factor is who can offer your product or service at the lowest price.
When you live by price, you will die by price, thus the race to the bottom. Case in point, the market cap value of Apple vs. Dell, as you can see below.
This chart starts in 1997 because that's the year Michael Dell made his infamous quote recommending Apple close its doors and return the money to its shareholders.
For the next 7.5 years, Apple and Dell mirrored each other in value, and then things changed in late 2004.
In just three years, Apple became more than twice as valuable as Dell:
- Apple: $140.4 billion
- Dell: $62.27 billion
Today—March 3, 2023—Apple is worth $2.37 trillion...and Michael Dell took his company private...and returned all the money to the shareholders.
Gotta love irony.
You Can't Save Your Way To Significance
Dell's claim to fame was being the low-cost provider.
They were masters of manufacturing and took Just In Time (JIT) inventory management to levels never before seen.
They owned countless patents around design and manufacturing, but at the end of the day, they were simply screwing together hardware components made by someone else so it could run software they didn't create.
Meanwhile, back in Cupertino, CA, Apple was pushing the envelope of ideas.
It was 2007 when the iPhone came out, and smartphones have never been the same.
In the first quarter of fiscal 2023, Apple generated 56% of its revenue from iPhone sales, and in Q422, iPhone revenue alone was $42.63 billion.
Where would Apple be today if it didn't decide to take a risk?
If they didn't notice market trends and seek to upend it rather than simply join it as another "me too"?
What if they didn't dare to be different and "think different"?
Marketing and growing your business today is all about generating inbound sales.
But making the shift, knowing what the marketplace really wants and needs from you, and having the courage to make the leap and put yourself out there as truly different, can be scary and difficult.
That's why I offer the Initial Process Assessment.
It's affordable. It's fast.
It's accurate. It's private.
It's enlightening.
Thomas L. Friedman describes today's times as "The Great Recession meets the Great Inflection."
He rightly discusses how the times we are up against now are forcing companies to become lean, innovative, and productive.
Anyone can become lean on their own. What are you doing to become innovative and productive?
Market like you mean it.
Now go sell something.
