August 28, 2008

Differentiate Or Get Lost

Heard of Jack Trout? He’s the marketing guru known for delivering practical guides for businesses on developing powerful differentiation strategies. He wrote a book co-authored with Steve Rivkin titled Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition which builds upon a very simple premise: To survive, or at least out-perform, one's competitors in this era of killer competition, a company must differentiate itself from the competition.

If you are happy where you are and want to stay that way while the rest of the world evolves, more power to you and you can begin the process of being kicked out. However, if you are smart you’ll realize that differentiation is the key to staying in the game, good for you.

The first thing you should do is stop being afraid by living in someone else’s shadow and letting them take all the credit. If you know you’re good at what you do and there’s no one else like you – claim it. Take the first spot and say you are number one at something – if you keep your mouth shut and then see your ideas being stolen or used by someone else, then you deserve it.

If you are a business owner please start taking some pride in your products – why be common when you can be different. Talk to your team and listen to them. Just because you are team leader, it doesn’t mean you know everything. And do you really know everything about your company? You can differentiate yourself by looking back on your company’s history or legacy. There are also many other companies that have impressive histories you could learn from.

Instead of trying to run your business like a headless chicken without focus (or maybe you think having focus means to stick to the same business plan forever), it’s time you considered differentiating yourself by focusing on a particular market specialty. Your failure to be different will lead to your company be eaten alive by the competition. If you want to be quiet – then get ready to fail as everyone else around you gets more successful. That’s as different as it’s possibly going to get for you.

5 comments:

Ms Yati said...

Differentiate yourself will help you a lot. Looking at the current situation in our country, you cannot only know 1thing. You need to know few different things to get you ready to embark at any areas. Something that I’ve learnt yesterday is to ask a lot of questions. Some people may dislike you but you can talk about feeling later as things that need to be done must be done on time. So be different and ask a lot of questions, you’ll amaze how this will help you in your journey.

Jeremy Lee said...

Many just don't bother with Differentiation. They just want to do the same old things. That is why even when they die, they do not know what happened.

Anonymous said...

That's right. Nobody will pay attention to the same ol' typical thing anymore. Be unique.

Anonymous said...

Everyone is special in their own way, find that uniqueness, bring it out and people will see you sooner or later.

Anonymous said...

I had a very good k-sharing last night myself because I shared on the book “Differentiate of Die”. The book gives me insights. Being different, does not mean to create something out of nothing. We just need to be ok and accept the fact that we allow to borrow someone else ideas and innovate from it.