Invest In My Idea

Distinguishing Yourself

In order for us to achieve anything, we must have, and effectively use, some skill or combination of skills. If, for example, we would like to achieve the task of reading the daily newspaper, we must know how to read and effectively use this skill in reading the newspaper. Similarly, if we choose to help a child learn to walk or talk, we must have some skill at helping others learn, even if the skill is simply encouraging the child to continue.

What’s Special About Your Service?

Generally speaking, people in similar service-based businesses provide the same or comparable services. As a lawyer, I was well aware of this reality. I knew that the pure legal services that I provided to the purchaser of real estate were, or should have been, exactly the same as those that another lawyer in the community would have provided. After all, we were following the same policies and procedures regulating the transfer of ownership of land. Further, we were using the same sample documents, which lawyers call precedents, to prepare the necessary paperwork. In most cases, we were using the same or similar checklists, usually based on models supplied by the Law Society, to ensure that every step was completed on a timely basis. For example, when a lawyer down the street helps an executor look after an estate, he or she is using the same policies, procedures, precedents, and checklists as another lawyer providing the same services to another executor at the other end of the province.

What distinguished my services from those of other lawyers in the community was my own personality, which influenced all aspects of how I practised law, including how I served my clients. Because I enjoyed interacting with my clients, I chose a very personal approach. This meant meeting personally with clients. Other lawyers who preferred tending to legal issues might have preferred to have their secretaries or clerks deal with clients. I also made it a point to explain different aspects of the services that I was providing; other lawyers chose instead only to answer specific questions as they arose.

Regardless of whether I provided legal services to the purchaser of real estate or if someone else did, after the transaction had closed, the result would have been the same:

What’s Special About Your Products? Your Service!

Think about what is special about various products. Consider plastic food savers, for example. These are the plastic containers with tight-fitting lids that we use for storing leftovers before we ultimately throw them out. Consumers looking for food savers can purchase them from retail outlets or from individuals who run their own business distributing plastic housewares. Regardless of where the items are purchased, the items will be essentially the same. The difference will be in the service provided by the independent distributor. Unlike a clerk in a store, this person can and probably will deliver the items, outline their features, demonstrate how to use them, and provide care and handling instructions.

Building Block

Regardless of what tangible items you sell, it is your service, shaped by your own personality, that distin-guishes your products.

Similar considerations apply to the work of artists and craftspeople. What distinguishes the work of one artisan from another is the personality, which includes his or her creative talent. Without the application of this personality, their work would be little more than unworked raw material.

If you sell products as part of your business, whether produced by you or someone else, what makes them special is how you apply your personality to selling them. Once again, what is special about your service?

How Your Unique Features Become Benefits to Your Customers

The chart on the next page will help you create an outline that briefly describes the unique features of your goods or services and how these features will benefit your customers. You can add any modifications that will occur during the coming year. During this step, you can also add reasons why a customer would want to purchase a specific product or service from you.

Entrepreneur Beware

In and of themselves, your personal-ity and the special features of your product or service are usually not enough to motivate people to buy from you. The special features must yield some benefit for your customers.

Marketing Aspects of Your Business Assets

In many cases, assets that are used in running a business have unique features that can also yield significant benefits to customers.

The table on the next page will help you identify what assets you have and how these assets can benefit your customers. When identifying individual assets and how their unique features might benefit customers, try to maintain a customer perspective. Common things that you take for granted might have significant benefits to customers.

Your Network of Contacts Also Distinguishes You

As your business grows and develops, you will find that you will know more people who can help you. Regardless of whether their help consists of providing you with specific services or simply providing you with useful information, your contacts represent another readily available resource that can yield significant benefits for your customers.

Your contacts can help your customers the same way that they can help you. As you continue to distinguish yourself and your business, remember to include your contacts in your activities. For more information about how your contacts can help, see Networking Is More Than Doing Lunch, published by McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited.