Posts Tagged brand building

“Say cheese,” says the person behind the camera. And you say cheese. Your facial muscles are frozen. You have a dumb, goofy look. And under your breath you’re muttering, “C’mon, take the picture, take the picture, c’monnnn!”

Click! You blink. The picture has been taken. And then the photographer runs to you, all excited to show the nice digital photo. You take a look, roll your eyes and cringe because you detest the photo. It looks artificial and posed. It’s not you. It looks like all those cheesy pictures you’ve seen before. It’s not unique.

How can it be unique? You weren’t yourself! And that’s the whole problem with uniqueness. You’ve tried too hard. In your business you’ve tried your darndest to get your own uniqueness. And you’ve failed miserably—because you froze. And the uniqueness you sought to find looked like a cheesy picture.

WHAT MAKES A BUSINESS UNIQUE?
When asked about your uniqueness, do you mumble something about “service or quality,” which mean nothing to most people?

The funny thing is, Sarah had the same problem. You see, Sarah teaches a yoga class. And a yoga class is a yoga class, right? Sarah twisted her brain like a pretzel, but she just couldn’t come up with a form of uniqueness.

So she did what all the experts recommended. She asked her clients. And some of them shrugged. Others gave her mixed answers. But this left Sarah more confused than ever.

Then she did what most businesses do. She gave up and figured her business would remain a commodity. The heck with uniqueness, she thought, because trying to find what was unique was too hard.

You see, Sarah was asking the wrong question. She was trying to look inward. The question isn’t, “What’s unique about my business?” Rather the question is, “What do I want to do in my business that’s different from everyone else?”

I asked Sarah what she’d want to achieve for her students most of all. Her response was lightning quick, and I backed up two steps at the speed and ferocity of the answer, “Injury,” she said. “You can really hurt yourself in a yoga class if you’re doing the wrong thing. I want every student to have injury-free yoga.”

Can you see it? Sarah couldn’t see it. Her uniqueness was “Injury-Free Yoga,” plain and simple.

So ask yourself, “What do I want to do in my business that’s different from everyone else?” What’s your dream for your customers?

Ask Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s Pizza.

Today you take quick pizza delivery for granted. But if you zapped your way back to the swinging, hey-groovy ’70s, you’d grow old just waiting for a pizza. You’d call a pizza place and ask, “Can you deliver?” And about 79 hours later, you’d be still tapping your fingers waiting for the pizza guy to arrive.

Tom Monaghan did what Sarah did. He couldn’t find anything unique about his business, so he invented his uniqueness. He figured out how to get a pizza to his customers in 30 minutes or less. And then he came up with Domino’s’ now historic slogan: “Domino’s Pizza. In 30 Minutes Or It’s Free!” Yup, the pizza man invented his uniqueness.

You can’t find uniqueness—it must be invented and here’s how you do it. You look at your business as if you were a monarch surveying his kingdom. And then you make a big, warm wish for your royal subjects by asking yourself, “If I could, what would I do differently? Then do it. And once you’ve gotten the swing of things, announce your uniqueness to the world.

Ah, but hang on there a second—once you’ve decided what you want to do better than anyone else, survey the neighborhood. Does any other competitor do the same? And do your competitors stress their uniqueness?

If the answer to these questions is no, then go right ahead and proclaim this uniqueness to your customers. However, it doesn’t matter if your competitor does the same thing. If you’re the first to announce it, you own it.

If you don’t believe me, ask Cindy Russell. Cindy Russell runs 9 Seconds.com, a search engine optimization firm in Tampa, Florida. So what’s so different about a search engine optimization company? Cindy invented her uniqueness.

Cindy’s proposition is simple. If you’re a real estate agent in Milwaukee, she won’t work with another real estate agent in Milwaukee. She’ll work with a real estate agent in New York. But she won’t have two real estate agents scrapping it out for top search engine rankings in one geographical area.

This makes Cindy different. Her customers know their privileged information stays privileged with Cindy. They realize the advantage of working with someone who has the integrity to pass up instant income for client secrecy. And they’re willing to pay more to get Cindy’s enhanced service. Cindy’s onto a good thing with her self-created uniqueness.

But, having a point of uniqueness isn’t enough. Once you get your uniqueness going, you must blah, blah, blah it to the rest of the world. Keeping it hidden on page six in paragraph 73 isn’t going to help you one little bit.

Most businesses know their uniqueness. They’ll even tell you their point of difference in a conversation. Yet, you won’t find it on the front page of their website. It’s swept under the carpet in their brochures and newsletters. When they stand up to speak, they forget to make it an important part of the spiel.

At the bottom of our newsletter, you’ll find “A real newsletter—not a disguised ad.” That’s what we decided to achieve. It’s our own invention.

Get your uniqueness where it can be seen on a consistent basis. Not hidden under a bushel.

IN CONCLUSION
You, too, can create your own uniqueness. If you have been frozen so far, un-freeze that cheesy slogan. Be who you want to be. You’re different. You know it. Now let the world know about your point of difference, too. Invent it!