After I ask shoppers about their challenges, one problem specifically comes up repeatedly: differentiation. Most corporations battle mightily to elucidate how they differ in a significant method from their rivals.
I’ve written about this problem earlier than, together with a method to distinguish the undifferentiated agency. However in the present day, I wish to introduce a unique method. One which we’ve begun utilizing with our shoppers—with wonderful outcomes.
We first encountered this idea in The Model Flip by Marty Neumeier. When you aren’t conversant in Marty, he’s written a few of the most insightful and accessible books on branding of the previous 20 years.
The concept is easy, however its potential is extremely highly effective: What single declare are you able to make about your agency that none of your rivals can match? The trick is to formulate it as a concise assertion:
We’re the one [your category] that [your primary differentiator].
Filling within the first clean is straightforward. It’s the second that journeys up most leaders. They are going to both throw up their palms or attempt to load it up with a raft of flotsam, jetsam and cliches.
The issue is that the majority corporations in a given class aren’t that totally different from one another. Your Solely Assertion is an easy instrument that may enable you to crack freed from the logjam and set your individual course.
You will have two levers right here:
- Your class (the way you outline what you do)
- Your differentiator (the one factor you do otherwise from others in your class)
If you’re fighting differentiation, you possibly can alter both of those levers—or each. Let’s take a look at every in flip.
The Class Lever
Suppose you run a CPA agency. You can slim your class by specializing in a selected trade (equivalent to startup expertise corporations) or service line (equivalent to fractional CPA companies).
Notice that adjusting your class doubtless means committing to actual change—not only a new set of selling messages. It virtually definitely means shrinking your potential viewers. The upside, after all, is that the viewers you serve will think about you higher certified than a generalist agency. This notion could make it simpler and sooner to develop inside the class. It’s possible you’ll even be capable to command premium pricing.
The draw back is that, relying on the make-up of your class, specialization might make what you are promoting extra vulnerable to market fluctuations. This vulnerability is very true for corporations with a powerful trade focus. This weak point, nonetheless, is offset considerably by your perceived authority.
The Differentiator Lever
After getting settled in your class, you possibly can sort out the second clean in your Solely Assertion. You’ll doubtless have a listing of potential candidates. If not, sit down together with your workforce and draw up a listing.
Subsequent, consider every candidate and ask these three questions:
- Is that this really distinctive?
- Is that this one thing your viewers actually cares about?
- Is this tough for one more agency in your class to repeat?
If an merchandise in your checklist appears to satisfy all of those standards, attempt it out in your Solely Assertion. How does it sound? A profitable Solely Assertion ought to ship a shiver down your backbone and make you surprise, how did I not consider this earlier than?
If none of your candidate concepts match the invoice, hold attempting. Use the three questions above as guides. Go searching at corporations in different industries for inspiration. Perhaps there’s a enterprise mannequin that’s by no means been tried in your area of interest. When you’ve carried out analysis in your shoppers, learn the verbatims. Or simply decide up the cellphone and discuss to your shoppers. Why did they select you? What makes your agency particular? What may you do otherwise that will change the sport?
What Does a Actual-World Solely Assertion Look Like?
It’s one factor to speak about an Solely Assertion in summary. However what do actual ones appear to be? Let’s think about my agency, Hinge. We made deliberate selections that affected each our class (who we select to compete towards) and our core differentiator.
Right here’s our Solely Assertion:
Hinge is the one research-based branding and advertising and marketing agency for skilled companies designed to raise the visibility of corporations and their consultants.
Discover how we outline our class. “Branding and advertising and marketing” is just too broad. “Branding and advertising and marketing for skilled companies” would work, although it features a dozen or extra main rivals.
We believed we may outline our class much more narrowly.
Most of Hinge’s shoppers are drawn to the impartial analysis we conduct on their industries. Annually, we produce our signature Excessive Development Examine, and once in a while we launch smaller research on specialised matters. We construct and alter our applications and advisory based mostly on this physique of analysis. As a result of conducting this type of analysis is difficult, only a few corporations do it—the truth is, none of our rivals do.
So we determined to outline our class as “research-based branding and advertising and marketing corporations for skilled companies.” We’re in a class with precisely one member—us. We get pleasure from eating alone.
Now, not each agency will likely be in a position produce a class this tight, and that’s completely okay. Keep in mind, your class is only one lever. Now let’s see how Hinge dealt with the opposite one.
In terms of our core differentiator, we selected Seen Experience®. We not solely wrote the guide on it, we have now designed our two signature applications round this idea: The Seen Agency® and The Seen Professional®. No one else gives advertising and marketing applications like these. And since we went to the difficulty and expense of trademarking the time period Seen Professional, no person else can use it.
Let’s take a look at a few different examples.
Populous is a world structure agency with a distinction:
We’re the one international structure agency that specializes solely in stadiums, arenas and occasions.
Their class is “international structure agency.” Most corporations their measurement have achieved their scale by including increasingly more companies. That’s what makes Populous’ core differentiator so efficient. Even with greater than 1,500 workers and 32 places of work on 4 continents, they’ve maintained a laser focus. They specialise in designing sports activities and leisure venues, in addition to producing large-scale occasions.
Not all corporations can have such a powerful trade focus. However that doesn’t imply they will’t have a killer Solely Assertion. Right here’s an instance of the Solely Assertion for a buyer expertise (CX) agency that brings a novel set of companies to {the marketplace}.
We’re the one CX consulting agency that gives all of the advisory, analysis, coaching, certifications, expertise and implementation experience a enterprise must ship an environment friendly, coordinated buyer expertise.
This agency’s class is “CX consulting”—one which has many rivals. Nevertheless, they create limitations to competitors by providing companies that require non-typical specialised experience, equivalent to CX certifications and analysis. As a result of they provide a whole suite of CX companies—from CX coaching to expertise integration—they stand alone within the conventional CX consulting class.
Creating an Solely Assertion in your agency will expose the energy or weaknesses of your agency’s positioning. For corporations with weak positioning, this train additionally supplies the readability you should start the method of fixing your agency in order that it might probably compete within the market by itself phrases. That’s the promise and the ability of your “solely.”
