I’ve started a few companies over the years. Some have been successful and one was a miserable failure, but what I gained from each one was experience and wisdom that I could never have found in any book.
As a result, a question I get asked a lot is “Do you have any advice for the average entrepreneur?”
And my answer is an emphatic “Yes, don’t be average!”
The failure that I mentioned earlier was a publishing company I started when I was much younger. One of my biggest mistakes was neglecting to differentiate my brand new publishing company from my competitors, so there was really no incentive for my potential clients to end their existing relationships to work with my company. It didn’t take long for it to fold. I lost a lot of money, but learned a lot in the process.
No matter what industry your business is in, you have to set yourself apart from your competitors. You have to find or create something that make you unique and gives you a major competitive advantage. Tuck away your own personal biases and self interests for a moment and put yourself in your prospect’s shoes; why should they choose your company over another? What advantages can you offer that others can’t?
Most people think the easiest way is to be the cheapest. The problem is there will always be someone else willing to offer the same product or service for less, so you’ll be perceived as nothing more than a commodity. Besides, you don’t want to attract the type of customers who will jump ship when your competitors offers to beat your price by a few dollars. We have a client in the wholesale seafood industry who regularly faces this challenge. Even though his company enjoys a loyal customer base and doesn’t compete on price, about 40% of his customers will try a new vendor to save a few cents per pound of seafood. Most end up coming back because of his commitment to quality, but this creates a lot of fluctuation in his income.
Here are a few ideas for the above-average entrepreneur:
- Provide customer service that blows peoples’ minds the way Zappos does.
- Turn an industry upside down. Think of what Redbox did to the movie rental industry.
- Target an extremely specific niche with laser focus. Instead of targeting women who exercise, target expectant mothers who practice Yoga.
- Provide the fastest turn around time in your industry. The option to get an order out the door in 24 hours can mean a lot to certain customers.
- Offer the widest variety of products possible; think of Walmart or Amazon.
- Provide an unconditional lifetime replacement guarantee—and actually follow through on it. Sears does this with their Craftsman line of hand tools.
Your goal isn’t just to be different than your competitors. It’s not even just to stand out from them. Your goal is to make them irrelevant and make your company the only logical choice. Ignore what doesn’t matter to your customers and focus on exactly what does. Give them that and you’ll be light years ahead of the average entrepreneur.
