Be Unique to be Successful

As a small business owner, you share a common problem: How do you grow your business on a limited budget? I have been spending a lot of time and effort lately helping WorkingPoint solve that very problem. Here are a few things I’ve noticed that I thought I’d share with you:

1. Established companies have larger budgets, better press and more momentum than you do.
2. The best product in the world (which we have by the way) won’t overcome a deficiency in marketing.
3. You do not have enough time or resources (meaning money) to buy your way out of this situation.

What’s a small business to do? My answer is that you need to think like a mammal in the time of dinosaurs. Early mammals were unique. They were more agile and could survive in harsher conditions that were marginal for the dinosaurs. But if they had tried to directly compete with the dinosaurs, well you get the picture. Your small business needs to think the same agile, scrappy way.

For an example of a unique offering, John Nese owns Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in Los Angeles. He sells more than 500 varieties of soda pop. Here is a great video in which he describes his unique offering. As John says, “Set yourself apart and delight your customers with something no one else has.”

Why? Because then you can bring your unique offering to market in a cost efficient way. John doesn’t sell Pepsi or Coke because he couldn’t sell it for the same price that the grocery store down the street could. By offering products you can’t get anywhere else (unique) he doesn’t have to compete on price and customers seek him out to get what he has. To put it in marketing speak his customer acquisition cost is lower and his margins and lifetime customer value is even higher.

You don’t have to be unique in all the world. You just have to be unique in your trade area. If that area is one zip code then that’s all you have to unique in.