How to stand out from the competition and get selected by customers?
Author: Mayur Bardolia
It’s quite obvious to get terrified to see the tough competition around.
What if I tell you that there is no such thing as ‘Competition or ‘saturated market’? So, What makes us stand out from the crowd? How to get noticed and selected by the customers among all the chaos in your industry?
In this podcast episode, Mayur will show you the thinking process to separate yourself from your competition in whatever you’re doing. It can apply in any online or offline business. Let’s find out, shall we?
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In the year 2018, while I was conducting a workshop on “How to create the sales pitch?” to some of the business owners.
And there was a participant called Abhishek. He runs a digital marketing agency. When we met he was only 10 months old in his business. He specifically wanted to be the best at content writing, creating ads and promotions. Now, Abhishek was struggling in his business. Just like everyone else he was calling people and seeking for the appointments, sending proposals and doing cold calls, having meeting after meetings. He was constantly chasing one after another in search for more customers.
He had strong work ethics but nobody was giving him the work.
He asked me, “I recently started the business of digital marketing and jumped on the online and offline market, but there’s SO MUCH competition. Everyone is doing the same as me. How do I separate myself from the crowd?”
We all have the same question. We hate when a customer says ‘NO’ and selects our competitor. It’s painful.
First of all, there is zero competition. And there is no such thing as market-saturation. It’s all not true – if you’re good enough.) Second of all, it’s easy to separate yourself from the crowd and stand out like a unique. In this podcast, I am going to use UpWork to illustrate how. Upwork, formerly Elance-oDesk, is an online global freelancing platform where businesses or individuals connect to conduct business. Upwork connects businesses of all sizes to freelancers, independent professionals, and agencies for all their hiring needs. Whenever someone posts a job, then clients apply to that job in terms of the cover letter where each freelancer would describe his skills.
I will give you an example of what I showed to the participant Abhishek on Upwork, but the thinking process behind this should be used to separate yourself from your competition in whatever you’re doing. It can apply in any online or offline business.
There are three things we are going to cover.
- Find out what you are doing? (Evaluate Your Data)
- Figure out what everyone else is doing (collect data).
- Do what worked on you + a little bit MORE (use data).
Part 1 Find out what you are doing? (Evaluate Your Data)
Let’s say you are going to a place which is about 100 km or miles away from where you are now.
You know where and how exactly you are supposed to reach. You pack your bags. You fill up the gas. You make sure your car is in good condition or not. You set your destination’s location on GPS or google map whatever. But what’s the first thing you need to do to start your journey? You need to know where you are now. You can’t move until you know what’s the next turn and direction you need to go to. We can’t go on a ride without knowing where we are now.
In the same way, in business, you need to know where do you stand in the market.
One very important question you should ask is “what’s your offer?”. If you don’t know what you are selling, then what are you going propose to customers? People fail at marketing is because the customers don’t understand what you are selling to them. And then they stop listening to you.
In the book “Offer Craft”, I have given the 8 ingredients that are required to create an offer.
If you miss out any of these ingredients or components, your offer will be too weak. If you haven’t read, go to amazon and buy the ebook ‘Offer Craft’. You will know how a powerful offer is created? Now, find out what’s your offer? What are you selling? What problems can you solve? What do you promise? How are you going to deliver? I asked that participant Abhishek to do the same.You also need to write down what you can do as well as what you can’t do. So, prepare the list.That takes us to the second part.
Part 2 Figure out what everyone else is doing (collect data).
In any team sport, before they play any match with another team, they find out what others are doing so well and what they don’t do well. They analyse the past and current performance of each of the players on the opposite side. They look at the data and do a lot of planning. The sports games that we watch is not an accidental event. It’s the result of painstaking and time-consuming plans. They don’t play randomly to win. That’s the kind of planning and brainstorming we need to do to win. That will give you uniqueness in the market. How are you going to do it? Let’s find out what I shared with Abhishek and it worked well.
Put yourself in the shoes of a client on Upwork. I mean, really do it.
You can create two types of account “Freelancer” and “Clients”. From the Client account, you are posting this job. In the case of Abhishek, I asked him to Post a general content creation or copywriting job. Copywriting is an art of creating ads, proposals and offers using the words. So, after posting the ad for the requirement, sit back and let the proposals and applications come in. Here, you are becoming a client (the type of clients you are looking for) and hiring the people like you. Take note of how other content creators and copywriters or should I say, your competitors are pitching you.
Take a note of which applications you like. And which ones you don’t. Make a list. Write this stuff down.
Observe what they are offering and how they are offering. Remember that If you are your client and you need to find out which applications are appealing to you. You also need to notice what you as a client didn’t like at all. So that you too don’t make the same mistakes. Notice what are the worst offers. And don’t do what you don’t like to do. That takes us to the third and final part
Part 3 Do what worked on you + a little bit MORE (use data).
Imagine you are going for shopping. You want to buy a pair of formal shoes. You are not too fussy about a specific brand. You just want to buy a nice pair of shoes. You go to different shops in a shopping mall. They all are showing similar or slightly different shoes. If you are not too brand conscious, You get confused. Then you go to a shop where the shopowner is offering you a free shoe polish when you buy a pair of shoes from them. Not only that they also give you a 20% discount when you buy a pair of socks from them. You are going to get extra what nobody offered you earlier. If you are like others, you will buy it because we love it when someone gives more than anyone else at almost the same cost and also gives something for free.
Now, after going through the application and offers you received as a client, find out what are the 1 or 2 of your competitors are doing so well.
Do the stuff that worked on you. If people were using a storytelling approach to win you over, use a storytelling approach in your own pitches. If people were using a conversational style approach, use a conversational approach in your own pitches. If they are showing you video presentation that you like, do the video presentation. But then… Go a step beyond.
Once you do step 1, you’ll have a good indication of exactly what everyone is doing.
And you’ll see a list of common patterns to avoid. Then, all you have to do is figure out NEW things you can do that no-one else is doing. Once you do these things, you’ll stand out instantly! Now, it’s time to write down what you are going to do. But I have got a few things to share with you.
Here are a few ideas to get you off and running:
Instead of replying with a full-text proposal like everybody else, shoot a quick, personalized video and submit it alongside your proposal (it’s more personal, real, and DIFFERENT) – this alone will win you a BUNCH of clients. Here’s a hint for you: my students and customers have done something very similar with their highly targeted cold emails and attracted up to 30% more response. You can also Offer BONUSES: “When you choose me to be your content creator or copywriter – not only will you get high-converting ads, but also [Bonus 1], [Bonus 2], [Bonus 3].
That’s the end of the final part.
Let’s summarise what we have covered in this podcast.
In our business, we see many people do the same thing as we do so how can we stand out from the crowd and stay ahead of the competition. Now, we covered three things.
Firstly, Find out what you are doing? (Evaluate Your Data).
You need to know where do you stand in the market. Ask yourself “what’s your offer?”. If you don’t know what you are selling, then what are you going propose to customers? People fail at marketing is because the customers don’t understand what you are selling to them. And then they stop listening to you. What are you selling? What problems can you solve? What do you promise? How are you going to deliver? Write the answers to these questions. Also, find out what you can do as well as what you can’t do. So, prepare the list.
In the second part, Figure out what everyone else is doing (collect data).
Now you become a client you are looking for and post a requirement of a person who does the same work as you do. You can post online (we talked about the example of upwork but you can do offline too) Take note of how your competitors are pitching you. Take note of which applications you like. And which ones you don’t. Make a list. Write this stuff down. Observe what they are offering and how they are offering. Remember that If you are your client, which applications are appealing to you. You also need to notice what you as a client didn’t like at all. So that you too don’t make the same mistakes. Notice what are the worst offers. And don’t do what you don’t like to do. That takes us to the third and final part
Do what worked on you + a little bit MORE (use data).
We love when someone gives more than anyone else at almost the same cost and also gives something for free. Now, after going through the application and offers you received as a client. Find out what are the 1 or 2 of your competitors are doing so well. Do the stuff that worked on you. Use the style that you like. It can be their storytelling, presentation, video etc. But then… Go a step beyond.
Once you do step 1, you’ll see a list of common patterns to avoid.
Then, all you have to do is figure out NEW things you can do that no-one else is doing. Once you do these things, you’ll stand out instantly! Now, it’s time to write down what you are going to do. Additionally, Instead of replying with a full-text proposal like everybody else, shoot a quick, personalized video and submit it alongside your proposal (it’s more personal, real, and DIFFERENT) – You can also Offer BONUSES: “When you choose me to be your content creator or copywriter – not only will you get high-converting ads, but also [Bonus 1], [Bonus 2], [Bonus 3].
Go the extra mile. Keep going to deliver where your competitors stop.
Next: We trust people and they betray us. They look like our supporters but they are fake. How can we take advantage of them?
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