Most people aren’t quite sure.
I mean, uniqueness seems like a ‘nice-to-have’ factor. But is it critical?
Let’s take a simple example
Let’s say you’re in the market for an iPhone and price is no object (yes we’re assuming, so play along). And let’s say you have the choice between the iPhone 3 and the iPhone 4. Which one do you want? But let’s ramp it up a bit. Let’s say you have the choice between the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4s? Now, which one do you want?
The choice isn’t much of a choice isn’t it?
Technically there’s not a lot to choose between an iPhone and an iPhone 4s. And yet there is. iPhone 4s has one thing—a uniqueness factor—that stands out like crazy. That uniqueness is a feature called ‘Siri’. For all practical reasons it makes no sense to upgrade/or buy a new phone, let alone an iPhone 4s. And yet that one factor pushes you precariously towards the edge.
But Siri doesn’t matter unless you know why it’s unique
I dictate all my emails using Siri. I could post this blog post, yup, using Siri. I don’t have to laboriously search for anything by scrolling, swiping or doing stuff I used to do with my old iPhone. I just speak. And Siri does it for me. Siri can’t cook yet, but it can do a ton of stuff.
And that Siri is the uniqueness. That’s the reason the iPhone 4s is selling millions of units.
Once a customer knows and understands the uniqueness, there’s no stopping them. They desperately want your product or service. And if they don’t buy it right now, they will buy it later. If done right, a uniqueness factor can have customers clamouring to buy.
And that’s only half the reason to have a factor of uniqueness
The other half is just noise. You have your product or service, but right alongside you there are twenty squillion products or services that kinda look a bit like yours. The noise in the marketplace is deafening and unless you can clearly state your uniqueness, your customer is simply not convinced. They nod appreciatively when you explain your features and benefits, but they don’t buy.
But do they really avoid the purchase?
No, they do buy. They just don’t buy from YOU. They bypass you, because you’ve not clearly demonstrated your uniqueness. Yet, the moment they buy from you, they turn from customers to evangelists. Once they understand why your product or service is different, not only do they become rabid customers, but they spread the word as well. And that’s really the power of uniqueness.
You can pretend it doesn’t matter as much.
You can fool yourself into believing your product or service will sell itself.
And yet look around you. Look at the products you buy everyday. Why do you buy those specific brand of shoes? Why did you buy that book from Amazon.com? Why do you fill your gas at this gas station instead of another one? All of the answers point to uniqueness. Once you figure it out, you’ll wonder how you could live without it.
How have you seen uniqueness change things for a product or service? Or even a business? Do you have some examples you could share?
P.S. Introducing the Uniqueness Mastery Home Study The Uniqueness Mastery Home Study is a precise system that enables you to get your product or service to stand out. And not just stand out in a garish, uncomfortable way, but in a manner where the customer knows exactly why they’re choosing you over the competition. It follows a system that that shows you how to get to your uniqueness. Find out more Uniqueness Mastery Home Study
Most of us think up a uniqueness or brand positioning and then worry about one thing: that the uniqueness will quickly get obsolete.
And it’s true—your uniqueness will quickly get obsolete if all it’s really doing is trying to be the ‘flavour of the month’. Or you could create a DNA factor.
So what is the DNA when it comes to positioning?
Let’s suppose you’re a teleconference company. And you say that your equipment is so darned good that a conference like being in the ‘room next door’. Now what does that mean? Sure it means that your equipment is the latest and the greatest. But that can quickly become obsolete, right? It’s easy enough for other companies to do the same. And pretty darned soon everyone has the very same equipment. And boof, your uniqueness is shot to hell.
Your brand positioning can’t just depend on some marketing campaign. It needs to work off a DNA.
Oh no it isn’t!
Your uniqueness is only in trouble if you use it casually—like a marketing slogan. But if it becomes your DNA—ah, now you’re so focused on ‘room next door’ that you do everything you possibly can to recreate that experience for your customer. You may, for instance, require your customer to go through some training to get the best sound quality from the teleconference.
You may post videos and information on ‘Why teleconference sound is crappy—and how to avoid it’. You may have teleseminars or teleconferences that treat all the other features as nice-to-have, but focus solely on getting absolutely stunning sound. And you may have recording systems that record high quality sound. In short, the whole fixation of your company will be with sound, sound, sound and yes, sound!
You stop focusing on every feature and build your DNA around the clarity of the call.
That’s when you get to be known for one thing. But more importantly, everyone in your organisation is um, crystal clear why the company exists; why they exist; and what’s their mission. This clarity goes out to the audience and they in turn decide not just to choose you for your nice slogan, but because you spend your days and nights living to create great sound.
Audiences are smart. They can figure out when you’re just running some stupid slogan. And when you live, breathe, eat and drink your uniqueness.
Bon appetit! 🙂
So do you have questions about DNA? Or examples of products or services with a strong DNA?
P.S. Introducing the Uniqueness Mastery Home Study The Uniqueness Mastery Home Study is a precise system that enables you to get your product or service to stand out. And not just stand out in a garish, uncomfortable way, but in a manner where the customer knows exactly why they’re choosing you over the competition. It follows a system that that shows you how to get to your uniqueness. Find out more Uniqueness Mastery Home Study
Positioning your brand may be a tough exercise. However what’s tougher is defending your position. Because the moment you have a great positioning statement or a great uniqueness, it’s likely that your competition is waiting to take it off you.
So how do you stop them? It’s a free country, and probably a free world, so you can’t really stop anybody. However, you can make it very hard for them to copy your factor of uniqueness. And the way to do this is to have a second level uniqueness factor in place.
But wait, what’s a top level factor of uniqueness? The first or top level of uniqueness is simply when you state your adjective, whatever that might be. So when you come with an adjective like grumpy, pedantic, tough, safe, you have won half the battle. Because now you are able to describe your product or service almost in a single word. Or at least a single phrase.
But this isn’t going to help you very much if the competition decides to step in… But let’s assume your competition isn’t so nasty. Do you still have to have a second-level of uniqueness? Of course you do. The average customer is bombarded with so much information, that they find it difficult to distinguish between the uniqueness of one brand vs. the other. When there’s a clear second-level of uniqueness, they know exactly why they should choose you, because you’ve given them the exact phrase or term that stands out from the rest of the pack.
So what’s the second level uniqueness? The second level of uniqueness is where you add a certain factor that simply cannot be copied. So for instance, we have the Article Writing Course. The Article Writing Course is called the ‘toughest’ in the world. Easy to copy, huh? Yes indeed.
But we slammed in a second-level: We called it ‘baby-toughness’ This means that it’s not dog level toughness, or cat level, but it’s as crazy as having a new born in the house. You don’t get any sleep at all for a long, long time. Now sure, you can come along and try to copy that factor of uniqueness, but you’ll struggle because now everyone recognises that second-level uniqueness as belonging to Psychotactics—and not to you.
Which is why Dominos got so busy so quickly They were just another pizza company. They too had a first level of uniqueness. It was a factor of speed. But they tossed in a second level. They said “30 Minutes or it’s free”. Now that became super-hard to copy. That uniqueness belonged to Dominos, and Dominos alone. It would be hard, even impossible to copy it without making an utter fool of your own company.
So how do you get to this second-level of uniqueness? Can you compare your product or service with something else? Does an image spring to mind? If so, you are now moving down the road to the second-level of uniqueness. A level that is hard to copy.
But what if you can’t get figure out how to get to the second-level at all? You may try really hard to get to the second level of uniqueness, and not make much headway. And technically speaking, that’s not a problem at this stage (and that’s because the follow-up video will tell you just how to do it).
But there’s another reason as well. When we started out with several of our products and services, we didn’t really know what the second level of uniqueness was right at the start. But we describe our products and services to clients, and then something would either pop out off our own mouth, or the client would say something that instantly got our attention.
That’s how we got to “baby-tough” We didn’t think of it at first, but the client came up with that concept. And so we just slapped it on our uniqueness. And that’s what you should do as well, because if you try to do it all at one go it’s too stressful. Start with getting to your first level of uniqueness, and let it sit with you a while. At some point in time, the second level of uniqueness will show up.
Coming Next: Second Level Uniqueness
P.S. Introducing the Uniqueness Mastery Home Study The Uniqueness Mastery Home Study is a precise system that enables you to get your product or service to stand out. And not just stand out in a garish, uncomfortable way, but in a manner where the customer knows exactly why they’re choosing you over the competition. It follows a system that that shows you how to get to your uniqueness. Find out more Uniqueness Mastery Home Study
Everybody loves goodies, don’t they?
And more so, when the goodies are extremely rare.
And it’s rare to find a book or a course that explains uniqueness clearly—if at all.
Everyone tells you that uniqueness is important, but no one tells you how to work through the uniqueness minefield.
Until now, that is…
Your understanding of uniqueness will change dramatically after you watch these detailed videos. And this is just the start of a 8-12 week (yes, week) bonanza on uniqueness and how to get there. So feast on these goodies that are to come.
About the videos below: Watch them a few times because there’s a tremendous amount of information—and well presented too (It took me a week just to create this set of videos—and I’m quick)! And yes, get some paper—you’re going to need to make notes. A cup of coffee or tea will help too 🙂
Have fun! P.S. Post your comments or questions on the blog itself. And yes, if you do watch this on YouTube, do post your comments there too. I would really appreciate it.
Part One: Getting to uniqueness.
Part Two: Getting to uniqueness
Part Three: Uniqueness mistakes and how to avoid them
So there you go. Watch these videos. And post your comments! I’m looking forward to what you have to say and the questions you have to ask.
P.S. Introducing the Uniqueness Mastery Home Study The Uniqueness Mastery Home Study is a precise system that enables you to get your product or service to stand out. And not just stand out in a garish, uncomfortable way, but in a manner where the customer knows exactly why they’re choosing you over the competition. It follows a system that that shows you how to get to your uniqueness. Find out more Uniqueness Mastery Home Study
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