Word to the wise: If you don’t stand out in some way, you’re done.
You might be able to exist, you might manage to survive, but that’s all you’ll ever have to look forward to. You can be a one-man show and still be corporate. Don’t do it. Don’t waste your time being just like everyone else. Don’t waste your soul on being average.
Give yourself more credit. Everyone has strengths. Everyone has talents and abilities. Not using them every day even in some small way is such a shame it ought to be a crime. (And it’s bad business to boot.)
Whether you’re a photography studio, a web design firm, a sports magazine, a sportswear company, a triathlon shop or an antique furniture store, you either stand out, or someone who does will come along to wow your audience and steal your business right from under your nose.
Trust me on this: you can’t afford to be average. Even if you’ve based your entire business model on the lowest price-points, on bare-bones bottom-line imports, you have to take your uniqueness as far as humanly possible… and then some.
Yes, even accounting and financial services firms can stand out. Restaurants. Retail outlets. Breweries. Day care centers. Schools. Law offices. Graphic design firms. Janitorial services agencies. Manufacturing plants. It doesn’t matter. Your industry and specialty are irrelevant. Anyone can stand out.
Here’s a tip for you: The best way to stand out in a crowd is simply to stand for something. Producing the most useful online content for your users. Making it easy for your customers to get information on products before they shop. Providing your clients with the best after-sale service in the industry. Brewing the best cup of coffee in the world. Turning boring shopping experiences into something fun and enjoyable. Returning calls faster than anyone else. Being the easiest company your customers have ever had the pleasure to do business with.
Business models are just templates, folks. They’re the framework. Marketing, advertising, branding, PR, all of these things are great, but remember that you can customize your business all on your own too. From packaging to billing to the way you answer the phones. From the grade of toilet paper you stock in your bathrooms to the way you hire new talent. From the corners you will never, ever cut to the crazy ideas you decide to put stock into. From the stand you take on community issues to the tone of the dialogue you foster with your customers. It is all in your hands.
Stand for something. Stand out. Be extraordinary, if only for a year, if only in the eyes of a handful of customers. If only during the course of a single phone call.
Be memorable.
Be worthy of note.
Don’t ever, ever, ever settle for safe or average or just good enough. Not in the big things. Not in the small things.
Know who you are and who you want to be as a person, as a company, as a brand, and just do it.
No one – let me repeat this – no one is standing in your way.
Now go out there and conquer something.
Brand Building and Online Marketing Blog 
Thanks for an inspirational read this morning. Just the ‘push over the cliff’ I needed to amp things up to eleven!
🙂
I’m kinda disappointed, Olivier. Everybody goes to eleven. Thought for sure you’d push through to at least twelve. 🙂
Oh wait, maybe you did.
Mine goes to 15.2. Still tweaking though.
Great post Olivier
It’s not just what you sell, it’s what you stand for!
Don’t just be a mirror for your market – reflecting their needs and wants – become their megaphone instead – their mouthpiece – to help them to get to where they want to go – with you as their guide and mentor – and to achieve what they want to become – their new future identity!
Unless we stand out, we are doomed to be in the commodity business. And when in the commodity business, the prospect doesn’t have any way to measure the difference between the competitors, except PRICE. And we all know where that goes. So unless we want to race to the bottom, you had better figure out a way to stand out.
I think one of the best ways to stand out it in your PROCESS, in as, “This is how we do it here”.
For example, If I am slower than my competition on a particular service because he is automated and I am not. Doing it by hand is obviously slower and it costs more. I “upsale” that extra hands on attention as TLC. Doing this process by hand is actually better for the finished product. It seems to work.
Comment fail.
I want to say something relevant, but all that comes to mind each time I re-visit the post above to convey a thought, that thought ends up being “F*ck yeah.”
11 indeed.
That’s a good comment. I’ll take that.
“Give yourself more credit. Everyone has strengths. Everyone has talents and abilities. Not using them every day even in some small way is such a shame it ought to be a crime. (And it’s bad business to boot.)”
You know this post could easily be related to positioning, but I don’t want to do that in this comment.
I’m an idea person. My challenge is to create and share new ideas every day. No sense wasting that.
Great post Olivier. As the saying goes, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll stand for anything. And, if you don’t stand out the only differentiator you have left is to be cheaper.
I think that if you don’t do this, its incredibly difficult to survive particularly during these difficult economic climes! Too many of us are ‘fluffing’ it. Being remarkable and memorable is the basis of thriving! Nothing less……
Your comment about standing for anything leading to price as your only differentiator is brilliant. Spot on.
That’s where I’ve been going wrong, I need to stand out more!!! :))