Creating Competitive Advantage: Give Customers a Reason to Choose You Over Your Competitors by Jaynie L. Smith & William G. Flanagan

Author:Jaynie L. Smith & William G. Flanagan [Smith, Jaynie L.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780385518444
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2006-04-24T14:00:00+00:00

Replace Your Clichés with Competitive Advantages

Your customers need to know what makes your company special, from the products/services you offer to the ways in which you deal with your customers. What messages are they getting now? Review your marketing and sales materials, including a printout of your Web site home page. Now underline the clichés and tired, subjective language—such as “We deliver quality and great customer service.” See what you have left. Is the prospective customer getting any message at all about your competitive advantages?

For the words you underlined, are there measurements that could turn those tired phrases into valid selling points? For example, instead of “We have knowledgeable and experienced employees,” what might you say that describes the level of experience and knowledge of your staff? How many years have they averaged on the job? What awards have they won?

Make a list of the products/services that you provide and their competitive advantages—including the strengths your competitors may not have. See if you can come up with metrics that make your advantages and strengths pop out versus the competition. Say your product is chemical free. Or you offer your customers payment options that your competitors don’t match. Or you offer the best warranty in the business, or respond quicker than the competition when troubles arise. Can you quantify those advantages for your customer? Do they know that they can save 3 percent on annual interest by choosing you? Do they know your product is 100 percent organic? Do they know your warranty is good for twenty-five years, or that your average response time is just three hours?

Which advantages and strengths do you already measure that can support claims that your competitors cannot make? If you are a supplier, for example, you already know how long it takes for an order to be fulfilled and delivered. How does that performance stack up against the competition? Is it worth bragging about, or improving, so it becomes a competitive advantage?

Which advantages and strengths do you need to start measuring in order to prove your claims if you need to?

The key is to focus not simply on your product/service itself but on all aspects of your relationship with your customer. Every one of your deliverables offers an opportunity for a competitive advantage or competitive positioning.

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