You wish to develop your small business, however you’re caught doing what everybody else does, just a bit bit higher. That’s the issue.
And it’s killing your possibilities of getting seen.
It’s potential, and customary, so that you can get caught within the “higher” lure. I guess you tirelessly work to enhance your product, your service, and your advertising and marketing, making it sooner, cheaper, prettier, or extra environment friendly than the competitors.
Whereas enhancing your advertising and marketing is nice, making an attempt to be “higher” than your competitor means you’re nonetheless enjoying their recreation, on their phrases. You’re nonetheless a variation of what already exists. And in right this moment’s deafening market, being a barely improved model of “the identical” means you’re successfully invisible.
You’re grey swimsuit #497 in a sea of grey fits.
This isn’t solely about advertising and marketing, proper? It’s about your very survival and progress. Once you mix in, you develop into a commodity. Once you’re a commodity, you compete on value, and that’s a race to the underside the place nobody actually wins.
Your perfect shoppers can’t discover you since you don’t stand out. Your message will get misplaced within the noise. Your distinctive worth, your ardour, your brilliance – all of it fades into the background.
The repair? Totally different is best than higher.
It is a basic regulation of consideration, and I really like to make use of in in my advertising and marketing. Because the good Sally Hogshead says, “Totally different is best than higher.” Your mind is wired to note novelty. When one thing is sudden, uncommon, or just totally different, it cuts by way of the muddle. It makes folks cease, lean in, and concentrate. Your aim isn’t to be the very best model of your competitor; it’s to be the solely model of you.
Final yr, I lastly dipped my toes into the TikTok ocean. For a man who normally prefers a whiteboard and a Sharpie, it was a wild experience. I attempted all the things – brief bursts of recommendation, longer rants, even some questionable dance strikes (don’t ask). And what turned crystal clear, by way of all of the experiments, was that the content material that really resonated, the stuff that really received seen and shared, was the totally different stuff. It wasn’t about being completely polished or having the very best manufacturing worth; it was about being genuine and, sure, a bit of unconventional ( me, that was straightforward). It proved, but once more, that totally different wins.
The best way to get totally different within the wild:
So, how do you implement this brilliant concept? How do you inject “totally different” into your small business and cease being invisible? It begins by wanting outdoors your trade for inspiration, after which having the braveness to adapt these concepts to your personal distinctive context.
Right here’s how one can make “totally different” your superpower:
- Observe unrelated industries for gold: Cease taking a look at what your direct opponents are doing. As an alternative, take note of what’s working in fully unrelated fields.
- Instance: A canine groomer seen the booming development of “boudoir images” for people. As an alternative of simply providing normal cuts and washes, they launched “Pooch Pinups” – skilled, creative boudoir photograph shoots for pets. They used delicate lighting, elegant backdrops, and playful props. It’s sudden, it’s memorable, and it faucets into the deep love pet house owners have for his or her animals. They went from being “a canine groomer” to “the canine groomer who does that.”
- Your motion: What’s a preferred development in trend, gaming, meals, or leisure that appears fully irrelevant to your small business? How may you twist it, adapt it, or apply its core precept to your choices? May a monetary advisor create a “gamified” budgeting app? May a B2B software program firm launch a “actuality present” documenting their consumer success tales?
- Use that persona of yours: Your trade is likely to be critical, however you don’t need to be boring. Folks join with folks, not simply services or products.
- Instance: An accountant, bored with the dry, formal picture of their occupation, began creating brief, humorous TikTok movies. They used trending sounds and relatable skits to elucidate complicated tax deductions, funding methods, or frequent monetary pitfalls. They didn’t dumb down the data, however they made it accessible and entertaining. They turned “the humorous tax guru” as a substitute of “simply an accountant.”
- Your motion: The place are you able to inject your genuine persona in an sudden method? May you utilize humor in your gross sales calls? Inform private tales in your advertising and marketing emails? Host a “hearth chat” podcast with shoppers the place you focus on their greatest challenges (and the way you solved them) in a uncooked, unscripted method? Take into consideration how one can break the mildew of communication in your trade.
- DEFY expectations: What’s the usual working process in your trade? What do shoppers count on? Now, do the alternative, or one thing fully totally different.
- Instance: In lots of service industries, shoppers count on hourly billing or mission charges. What if you happen to provided a “Netflix-style” subscription service for ongoing help, the place shoppers pay a flat month-to-month payment for limitless entry to a particular vary of providers? Or what if you happen to assured a particular final result reasonably than simply effort?
- Your motion: Problem the assumptions. If everybody affords a free session, supply a paid “discovery session” that delivers speedy worth. If everybody focuses on options, deal with the emotional transformation your product supplies. If everybody makes use of inventory pictures, use uncooked, behind-the-scenes footage.
Dig deeper:
This idea isn’t nearly intelligent advertising and marketing; it’s about constructing a very resilient and noteworthy enterprise. To dive deeper into the strategic crucial of being totally different, try these sections in my books:
- Get Totally different: Chapter 1, pages 1–13. That is the place I lay out absolutely the urgency and obligation you must be totally different. It’s not a nice-to-have; it’s vital for survival and progress.
- The Pumpkin Plan: Chapter 4, pages 57–61. This part helps you pinpoint what actually makes your small business uniquely helpful. It’s about figuring out that core providing that solely you can ship with such distinction.
- Repair This Subsequent: Chapter 2, pages 30–36. Right here, you’ll learn to find your small business’s true progress leverage level. Typically, the largest breakthroughs come from amplifying what makes you essentially totally different, reasonably than simply patching up weaknesses.
Go AI for unconventional concepts:
When you’re nonetheless brainstorming, use AI as your artistic sparring associate. Don’t ask it to offer you “higher” concepts in your trade. Ask it to be daring. Copy and paste this immediate:
“Generate one daring, unconventional advertising and marketing technique that nobody in my trade is doing. Pull inspiration from profitable ways in unrelated industries and clarify how I can apply them step-by-step.”
Then, problem it: “Give me one other, even crazier concept.” Use it to push your personal considering past the standard.
Remaining thought:
Let me remind you what Sally says: “Totally different isn’t dangerous. Invisible is dangerous.” The most important danger you possibly can soak up enterprise right this moment is to be indistinguishable.
Be you.
-Mike
