How to Differentiate Yourself

How do you stand out in the crowd?  Let’s face it there’s a million other people offering the relatively same product or service as you if not the identical product or service.

The famed sales trainer, Jeffery Gitomer says, “differentiate with value, or die with price.”  He’s exactly right.  But what is value?  In terms of your business, it’s anything you do above and beyond the normal course of business that differentiates you in your prospect or clients eyes.  Let’s keep it short and sweet this week.  Here are 10 strategies that you can you use to differentiate yourself with value over your competition:

1. Stop cold calling please.  It doesn't work.  find out who you want to do business with and, connect with them on LinkedIn, follow them and their company on twitter, friend them on facebook and fan their page, and/or get introduced to them through a mutual connection.  Take your time and build a relationship, or you are guaranteed to come off just as shallow and selfish as your commodity providing competitor.  It takes time and hard, but fun, work.  Do it.
2. When you call on a prospect give them something of value.  Buy them lunch, bring them a gift they can use, or better yet, bring them or refer them business.  Nothing in business says I love you more to someone, then stuffing their wallet.
3. Help your prospects and clients with their problems.  We’re all in business and all face similar challenges.  The scope and size may vary, but if you look to your network you certainly can find some solutions to help them out.  Oh yeah, do it selflessly.
4. Be the go to lady or gentleman in your business that others look to for advice and guidance.  The absolute fastest way to get recognized this way is to speak free to every group that you can get in front of.  You will be perceived as an expert by default.
5. And to go with #4, be an expert in your industry.  Make your business an art form.  Learn everything you can about it, your business climate, what’s in it for your customer, and how you can deliver it more efficiently than anyone else.
6. Teach, don’t preach.  People inherently like to learn.  So don’t show up and throw up.  Explain yourself likes its sliced bread.  Customers and prospects will learn more from you and do more business with you as a result.
7. Under-promise and way over-deliver, not the other way around.
8. Do not pester them with silly follow calls that provide no value.  In other words, don’t call and ask if they’ve made a decision.  Call them and offer another value added solution, suggestion, or referral.  They know why you’re calling.
9. Be genuine and nice.  This goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway.
10. Be grateful and show your gratitude.  Every grateful person I know is far wealthier, both spiritually and financially, than pretty much everyone else.

Delivering more value and differentiating yourself from your competitors is not hard.  It just takes work, and if you love your work this should be a labor of love.  Get creative, be goofy, and have fun being different.  Who knows, you may just end up fattening your clients wallet, your wallet and your spiritual wallet.