BE DiFFERENT or be dead: How to Distinguish Yourself in the Faceless Herd

1. BE DiFFERENT or be dead: How to Distinguish Yourself in the Faceless Herd

2. BE DiFFERENT Agenda How to … *** DISTINGUISH *** DOMINATE ***GROW *** SURVIVE

3. It’s all about creating… UNIQUENESS DISTINCTION REMARKABILITY GASPWORTHINESS INDISPENSABILITY MEMORABILITY UNFORGETTABILITY AUTHENTICITY

4. The Competitive Herd… The herd is growing at a breathless rate All seek the edge; advantage And yet… undifferentiation is happening Copying trumps uniqueness

5. The Competitive Herd… Product myopia: Incremental feature creep ‘Round-the Corners’ to appeal to the many Benchmarking – shortfall gaps closed rather than differences created or enhanced.

6. Distinguish & Dominate To stand-out from the Herd… If you can’t deliver VALUE which is RELEVANT (something people really care about), AND UNIQUE(something that ONLY you provide) You are in serious trouble! In other words…..

7. Distinguish & Dominate If you’re not ReMARKABLE, you’re CoMMON, IgNORED and InVISIBLE If you’re not DiFFERENT, you’re DiSPENSABLE If you’re not DiFFERENT, you’re DEAD (or soon will be)

8. Distinguish & Dominate “You don’t become indispensable merely because you are different. But the only way to be indispensable is to be different” – Seth Godin, Linchpin

9. BE DiFFERENT Themes Strategy – Focus on EXECUTION Marketing – Create VALUE Packages for The WHO Service – SERVE your Fans & deliver Dazzling service experiences to them Sales– Develop intimate RELATIONSHIPS

10. BE DiFFERENT - Strategy DISTINGUISH = EXECUTE Dumb down your Strategy and ACT! Answer 3 questions & you have your strategy HOW BIG do you want to be? – Top Line $$ WHO do you want to SERVE? – The WHO HOW will you compete and WIN? VALUE; RELEVANCE; UNIQUENESS – The WHAT

11. The ONLY Statement The ultimate manifestation of BE DiFFERENT is the ability to express your distinction in The ONLY Statement “We are the ONLY ones that….”

12. The ONLY Statement “You don’t want merely to be the best of the best. You want to be the ONLY one’s who do what you do” – Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead

13. The ‘ONLY’ Statement MUG Solutions, Vancouver: ‘We provide the ONLY solution that permanently stops people from depositing biohazard contaminants through manhole covers.’ CJSmusic, London Ontario: “…is the ONLY music service in Canada that offers online music lessons and composition services for advertisers, filmmakers ..”

14. The ONLY Process The WHO– WHO to SERVE? The WHAT– WHAT do you provide that is relevant, compelling, remarkable, ‘gaspworthy’ and UNIQUE? The ONLY – craft your ONLY Statement The TEST – is your ONLY RELEVANT? Is it TRUE? The Action – determine key steps to implement your ONLY

15. BE DiFFERENT - Strategy Be ANAL about Execution 20% plan; 80% execute Plan ‘just about right’; Execute flawlessly Bre Pettis on Done…

16. BE DiFFERENT - Strategy Cut the CRAP Cut list/Keep list Beware of custodians of the past Eliminate the ‘Grunge’ preventing progress Customer Moments are untouchable

17. BE DiFFERENT - Strategy Focus. Focus. Focus Roy’s Rule of 3 Focus on the critical few Plan on the Run Learn and adjust your strategy as you go Be‘good’ at anticipating; ‘great’ at reacting Plan, Execute, Learn, Adjust, Execute …

18. BE DiFFERENT - Strategy Beware of Benchmarking Best of class = ‘highest common denominator’ to BE DiFFERENT from Baseline to Distinguish Copying = enemy of BE DiFFERENT Domination = distancing yourself from the herd BM to Improve, Yes, but NOT to Distinguish

19. Marketing Today… LAZY & BORING UNDIFFERENTIATED; INVISIBLE PRODUCT FEATURE CREEP BENCHMARKING TO COPY MASS MARKET MANIA ROUND-THE-CORNERS FOCUS TECHNO ADULATION VALUE BLUR

20. BE DiFFERENT - Marketing DISTINGUISH & DOMINATE = #1.CREATE VALUE … We are in the Value Creation Business, right? Common sense but the competitive herd generally doesn’t do it – the blur thinks product supply & price

21. A Word on VALUE… It’s NOT about what we produce, our technology and the cool things it can do It IS about The impact what we produce has on The WHO and their lives Creating memorable moments Injecting a dose of humanity in what we do

22. BE DiFFERENT - Marketing DISTINGUISH & DOMINATE = #2. FOCUS ON YOUR FANS The people who care about what you do, who are connected and will ‘Sneeze’ you to others Shed mass market thinking The ‘average’ customer doesn’t exist Covet small and smaller customer groups

23. BE DiFFERENT - Marketing The smaller the group, the more you know about each person in the group AND the more relevantyou can become in what you provide them R (Individual) = 1/Size of Group ‘the Rule of 150… a simple rule of thumb that distinguishes a group with real social authority from a group with little power at all’ – Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point

24. BE DiFFERENT - Marketing Focus on expanding your loyal Fan base Know your Top 10 FANS: high value customers Know your ‘Sneezers’ and ‘Mavens’ who will spread the word Enable them to communicate among themselves and with you It’s about viral word-of-mouth epidemics

25. BE DiFFERENT - Marketing Another thought… do you have any BE DiFFERENT customers? Eccentric Quirky Outliers Weird Look for unique Fans and serve THEM!

26. BE DiFFERENT - Marketing DISTINGUISH & DOMINATE = #3. PACKAGE VALUE Move from a product focus to VALUE-BASED PACKAGES Objective: DiFFERENT Branding PREMIUM Pricing Discounted bundles NOT ALLOWED 

27. A Shift in emphasis… Value Pak The Many Product The WHO

28. VALUE Paks… VALUE Paks Holistic perspective of The WHO: broader than a features/benefit mind-set; the TOTAL person/organization Problems solved Shareholder value created Experiences delivered ***** Happiness created Memories produced

29. BC Ferries ‘Valley Golf Adventure’ • 2 nights @ Crown Island Resort • Round trip on BC Ferries • Morning round of golf, power cart, practice facilities • $310 May – Sept 30

30. BE DiFFERENT - Marketing VALUE Paks … Powered by Customer Learning – continuous learning process More than Market Research To discover the Secrets of The WHO Customer Secrets – Intimate, deep knowledge of the person Ask questions and LISTEN

31. BE DiFFERENT – Serving DISTINGUISH & DOMINATE = SERVANT LEADERSHIP Serve customers don’t ‘service’ them Service cars not people! Its not about imposing service policy on them; its about serving them in a way that creates delightful experiences Allow the customer to controlyou

32. BE DiFFERENT – Serving Serving = CORE SERVICE + … What they GET from you.. Dial tone, clean hotel rooms, good food, completed flights Satisfy ‘em Meet expectations 24X7X52 You get C’s If not, they will leave you in a HEARTBEAT And SCREAMhow BAD you are to anyone who will listen!

33. BE DiFFERENT – Serving Serving = CORE SERVICE + SERVICE EXPERIENCE How they FEEL DAZZLE ‘em with it Make it GASPWORTHY Leave ‘em BREATHLESS You get A’s Loyalty, Raving Fans & Sneezers

34. BE DiFFERENT – Serving VARY THE TREATMENT • Vary how you treat people; BE Flexible • Same treatment for all = mixed level of satisfaction • Different treatment = constant level of satisfaction • Each person is DiFFERENT • I won’t GASP if I am treated like a cog

35. BE DiFFERENT – Serving The Dazzle Factors … Hire Human Being Lovers – Hire for Goosebumps! Kill Dumb Rules Be flexible: empower Frontline to bend rules and ‘say yes’ Provide Dazzling Recoveryfrom your Service Blunders: Fix your screw-up and WOW ‘em – do the unexpected (secrets)

36. BE DiFFERENT – Sales DISTINGUISH & DOMINATE = RELATIONSHIPS & INTIMACY Sell Relationships NOT Products Build intimate relationships with your FANS Long term success is about BONDING not flogging

37. BE DiFFERENT – Sales Build compensation planon Relationship – building behaviors Start at 80% sales revenue; 20% RB Increase RB component over time Get customers to rate sales people on RB competencies: Customer Report Card

38. THANKS for visiting 