"Why should I do business with you and NOT your competition?" is the killer question for every organization. I have learned how to do it over my 30+ year career. Check it out...

1. Why Should I
Do Business
With YOU?

2. Your Competitive
Advantage?
How do you answer the question:
"Why should I do business with you
and not your competitor?"
This is the killer question for all marketers.

3. Your Competitive
Advantage?
In today's noisy world with every
organization shouting out why they should be
chosen, the marketer needs to determine how
to get their products, services and solutions
noticed in the milieu.
They need to claim a competitive
position that is unique and one that
stands-out in the crowd.

4. Your Competitive
Advantage?
The tendency among most marketers is to go
on a copying rampage where the priority
is on replicating in some way what someone
else is doing.
Other players are benchmarked on some
capability and the copycat strategy
unfolds.

5. Your Competitive
Advantage?
Copying doesn't create uniqueness
and differences; it proliferates
sameness.
In fact it dilutes any marginal differences
among organizations that might exist and
renders them all as look-alikes.
And it lowers the bar for each competitor to
achieve.

6. Your Competitive
Advantage?
Marketers also love to use vague helium-filled
attributes and superlatives as the way of
claiming how they are different. "We provide
excellent customer service"; "We exceed
customer expectations"; "We offer the best
value"; "We provide the best value for money"
have been overused to the point where they
are meaningless.
All they do is add to the message clutter.

7. Your Competitive
Advantage?
A credible competitive claim needs
to be simple and specific in terms of
how an organization is different from
the competitive herd.
It needs to address something a customer
cares about and it needs to be delivered
consistently 24X7.

8. Your Competitive
Advantage?
Jerry Garcia, former leader of the legendary
rock band The Grateful Dead, nailed it:
"You don't want merely to be the
best of the best.
You want to be
the
only ones who do what you do."

9. Your Competitive
Advantage?
My ‘ONLY' statement is the practical way to do
it.
"We are the only ones that...."
is the claim that will cut through the clutter and
make it clear why you should be chosen
among your competitors.

10. Your Competitive
Advantage?
My 5 ONLY rules:
1.The only statement must speak to the
experiences and value you create for
people not the products or services you want
to push.
2. It must be brief. It's a sound bite. If it
consumes a page it isn't a viable claim.

11. Your Competitive
Advantage?
My 5 ONLY rules:
3. Talk to the specific customer group
you are targeting not the market in
general.
4. Test your only statement with customers
and employees to ensure it is relevant and
true.

12. Your Competitive
Advantage?
My 5 ONLY rules:
5. Consider your ONLY statement a
draft. You won't likely get it right the first
time, so take your almost-there only statement
and start working with it.
Refine it as you go.
And stay alert for a competitive move when
they see what you are up to.

13. Your Competitive
Advantage?
Creating your ONLY Statement is
extremely tough work.
But it is necessary if you want to step away
from the crowd.

14. An Invitation
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