DIY Marketing

Hi there,

We’re up to day 9 of the Entrepreneurs 30-day
Do-it-Yourself Marketing e-Course!

I’m looking forward to a great week ahead with some wonderful ideas
to share! So, with that, let’s continue!

Oh, and if you just signed up, you can see the course info we’ve
already covered right here:

http://www.diymarketingmonth.com/e-course-email-recap/

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“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning
into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.”
– Jack Welch
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One of the competitive advantages of an e-course like this one is
the ability to add, alter and update things right up to the moment
they’re published in order to bring the best thinking and content
to bear on the situation at hand. Thusly, this competitive advantage
segment is influenced by an article that I read yesterday from the
HBR (Harvard Business Review) Voices blog on the fleeting nature of
competitive advantage. Rita McGrath, Columbia Business School
professor and author of the article had this to say on the subject
of hypercompetition:

“One implication of hypercompetition that has not yet gotten the
attention it deserves is that the skill of getting out of things
and re-focusing your organization is likely to be just as important
as spotting opportunities and moving to capture them.”

Many entrepreneurs, myself included, got into a business because we
had passion and drive for the subject matter that we were working on.
Perhaps you turned a hobby into a business or you bought into a
business you believed in based on the idea, the product or the love
of something, other than business for the sake of business, of
course. While this thinking and drive got you in to business, it’s
not enough to keep you in business.

Now is as good a time as any, in fact, it may be the best time to
re-evaluate your current competitive advantages and how you express
them to your customers and prospects. When is the last time you sat
down and objectively assessed your competitive space?

Properly expressing your competitive advantage is a success
imperative. If you can’t tell enlighten your prospect on why you’re
the better choice, your career will be short-lived. Even in a
business-to-business setting, where most of our clients are, the
decision to do business with one company over another involves multiple
people, but all of those people are thinking and emotional beings.
Everything connects to the personal at some point.

*** Let’s focus on marketing our competitive advantage, shall we.

Seth Godin puts it this way:

“When the factors that matter to me are processed through my
worldview and compared against the options I’m aware of, I will
choose you when your advantages are greater than the competition,
provided I believe that you’re worth the cost of switching.”

Here are a few things to think about as you’re re-crafting your
competitive advantage to take to market:

1. Does it ‘matter to your prospect’? Remember, we’re focused,
targeted, segmented and marketing not to the world but to the
universe that we an help. What matters to them. To heck with
everyone else.

2. What’s their worldview/paradigm? Based on experience, geography,
peers and other things that create one’s worldview, how can you
stand out against everyone else?

3. What options are they aware of? Recall day 2 where I asked you
if ‘everyone knew about you who should know?’ Well, do they? If I
don’t know about you, you don’t exist and you can’t be chosen.

4. Can it stand up to internal word-of-mouth? In many situations,
especially in B2B, the multiple actors need to talk an each will
pitch the favorite vendor with their version of your competitive
advantage, as they understand it.

5. Are you worth the switching cost? One of the things we teach in
thought leadership and insurgent marketing is that you need to
choose some very specific strategies when trying to unseat an incumbent.
Your competitive advantage has to unseat and overturn their momentum
and legacy relationship.

Back to Seth Godin, here are some of the ways you might build or
maintain a competitive advantage:

* Access to hard-to-replicate Talent
* Hard-earned skills
* Higher productivity due to insight or organization allowing you
to be cheaper
* Low cost of living for you and your staff allowing you to be
cheaper
* Protected or secret technology or trade secrets
* Existing relationships (switching costs working in your favor)
* Virtually organized product and organization
* Large network of users already and a network effect to support you
* Focus on speed
* Monopoly power and the willingness to use it
* Unique story that resonates with the worldview of your target
audience
* Shelf space due to incumbency
* Large media budget
* Insight into worldview of prospects–making what they care about
* Emotional intelligence of your salesforce or customer service
people
* Access to capital and willingness to lose money to build share
* Connection to community

Not on this list, at least not prominently, are “we are #1!”, “we
are better!” and “we try harder.” Cheerleading skills are not a
competitive advantage in most settings. And, with few exceptions,
neither is “we are new.”

Enough of the lesson. Let’s get to re-creating our competitive
advantage.

***** PERSONAL ASIDE *****

As a personal addition to this piece, I’m a fan of the Wallace
Wattles quote (derived from Buddhist teachings) on being a
‘creator’ vs. being a competitor. I believe this to the core, but we
live in a world with many actors and our customers will not always
act in accordance and see things from a perspective of competition
where choices must be made. Expressing our competitive advantages is
simply a way of helping them to make that choice in our favor.

“You are to become a creator, not a competitor; you are going to get
what you want, but in such a way that when you get it every other
man will have more than he has now.”
– Wallace Wattles

***** ACTION SUMMARY *****

1. Your competitive advantage will, or already has changed. It exists
at a point in time under specific circumstances. Use one of the
worksheets below and catalog your current reality, your target
market’s current reality and start down the path of updating your
competitive advantage.

2. Answer these questions honestly: 1. What are your company’s
primary competitive differentiators today; 2. What are its best
opportunities for equal or greater differentiation tomorrow; and
3. What’s are the most important business initiatives under way to
create that future competitive differentiation?

3. Draft a one-page ‘business plan’ or summary stating your
competitive advantages that are relevant to the markets you serve
and commit them to memory and express them in your marketing.

***** RESOURCES *****

>> Merrill Lynch Competitive Advantage Worksheet
http://philanthropy.ml.com/ipo/volunteer/pdf/level2worksheets4.pdf

>> Kauffman Competitive Advantage Worksheet
http://www.entrepreneurship.org/eShip/appmanager/eVenturing/ShowDoc/eShipWebCacheRepository/Documents/Competitive_Advantage_Worksheet.pdf

>> CIO.com – How to Find Your Competitive Advantage
http://www.cio.com/article/20537/How_to_Find_Your_Competitive_Advant
age

Well, that’s all for now. Be on the lookout for next lesson
tomorrow!

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If you would like to learn more about MarketingSavant’s marketing
strategy, thought leadership or social media services, where you
work directly with me to build your business through strategic
marketing, go to:

http://www.marketingsavant.com/diymarketing

I’ve created a special set of offerings just for DIY Marketing
e-course members.

And, as always… think big and market well!

Yours truly,

Dana VanDen Heuvel

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MarketingSavant(TM)
Leading Through Thought
Social Media // Thought Leadership Marketing
www.marketingsavant.com
dana@marketingsavant.com
Twitter: danavan
888-989-7771
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