Brand matters

Make it easy for a prospect to favourably differentiate your company's offer from that of your competitors and keep developing that differentiation

Your brand

How is your company different from your competition? Why should anyone choose to do business with you rather than any of your competitors?

The way you position your brand is fundamental to your ultimate success so it's vital that you get it right.

It's very difficult nowadays to come up with a product, service or solution that is totally new, truly unique and perceived by the prospect or customer to be the only solution to his or her problem. If you do manage to, you can bet your boots it won't be long before the nub of your idea is copied and the competition is up and running and possibly undercutting your price too.

So how can you protect your business and profitably win, grow and keep your customers when, to all intents and purposes, it's a jungle out there?

You can build genuine, enduring differentiation of your business brand by giving it explicit core values, and endowing it with a distinctive and attractive personality that makes your customers think, for example, "I like these people. I know where I stand with them and they deliver their promise. They treat me like an intelligent individual, not some moron. They understand and care about my (business) needs and I can trust them."

So think about what you have to offer that's unique. What is so different and better, or can be presented as such, than anything anyone else is offering? You need to have this differentiation clear in your own mind and be able to position your company to your market in a way that separates you from and lifts you above your strongest competitor.