Do you know why your best clients buy from you? They could choose to buy from your competitor, or they could choose not to buy at all, but they choose to buy from you! The answer to this question is your key to riches. If you know exactly what causes your best clients to choose your offer over your competition there is a good chance that other people that are like them will also choose you, once they know what makes you special. After all, it’s what they think that matters! What they think matters is your Differential Advantage over the competition – the thing that sets you apart in the mind of your ideal client.
Have you ever been in a situation where you are running late and you can’t find the car keys? Did you notice that the keys are always in the last place you look? In fact this is always true, even when the keys are in the first place you look. That is because once you find the car keys you immediately stop looking for them. The same truth applies to clients when they are looking for a particular product or service. They are looking for specific features or benefits that allow them to satisfy a need. They know what they want and time is limited so when they find IT they stop looking. Understanding what specific people are looking for and knowing what you offer makes the task of finding clients much easier and much more rewarding. When you know what they are looking for and why, you can plan to be in the space they first look.
So, it makes sense that every business owner should be keenly aware of their Differential Advantage (often referred to as Unique Selling Proposition – USP). After all this should be the core message in all of your sales literature and advertising campaigns. To that end, libraries of books have been published on the topic. Surprisingly, the reality is that many business owners are still fuzzy about their DA. When asked the question, why do folks buy from you, many people hesitate, or worse, say, I don’t know. Often we are so busy doing business we fail to stop and think about what it is we are trying to accomplish.
In an effort to help business leaders clarify their thoughts on DA we have created a simple tool called the PQS Triangle. Click the link at the bottom of this article to obtain a copy. We believe that every DA that your business has can be sorted into one of three categories – PRICE (P); QUALITY (Q); SERVICE (S). By understanding what is DIFFERENT about your business and how that gives you an ADVANTAGE over the competition you can determine who will want to deal with you and why. That makes business development easy. Remember you must choose a path. If you try to be all things to all people you will fail to please anyone.
Click PQS Tool for the tool, or visit our website library at www.spiritedleaders.ca
Cecil Hayes,
Spirited Leaders Corporation
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