The Ultimate Unique Difference, Jack Burke

When doing workshops I spend a lot of time working with the audience on defining their “unique difference” in the marketplace. The good news is that in the last year or so everyone doesn't immediately say that “good service” is their unique difference. I think the industry has finally acknowledged that good service is a customer expectation, thereby no longer qualifying as valued added. The bad news is that most agents and agency owners have difficulty in determining exactly what their unique difference might be.

At this point I try to make two critical points:
1. Clients are the ones who can best define the unique difference of an agency.
2. The most unique difference is the individual.

As business owners and managers we can spend hundreds of hours trying to determine our unique difference – and probably never get it right. We need to go direct to our best clients and ask them, “Why do you do business with me?” Their answers might surprise us, but doesn't it make sense to build our brand, our marketing persona around the very reasons that our best customers throw money at us?

Perhaps we offer risk management services that help them better manage their business and their premiums. Perhaps it's because we are “johnny-on-the-spot” when a claim arises. Perhaps it is the depth of our knowledge and expertise in their industry. Perhaps they simply like us – a lot. Whatever the case, these are the things that drew these clients to us and enable us to retain their business and loyalty. If we build our marketing brand around these factors, isn't it likely to assume that we might attract similar type clients?

I like to suggest a $20 focus group. Take a client to lunch and simply ask four questions:
1. Why do you do business with me?
2. What am I doing right?
3. What am I doing wrong?
4. What do I need to be doing to walk into the future with you?

If you ask these questions, you will gain a tremendous insight into your business model. This insight will better prepare you to gain new clients and retain existing clients – the perfect model for success. I do offer one caution, however. If you ask these questions, be prepared to take action on them. Failure to do so could cost you the client.

Point number two is the uniqueness of the individual. No two are alike. Yet we often fail to capitalize on this advantage. We always promote the “agency”, seldom the “individual”.

As an example, let me draw from the experience of an auto dealership. Car dealers are notorious for turnover amongst sales personnel. Seldom can you go back to dealership fours years later and find the same sales person that sold you your last vehicle. Many burn out quickly, others think it is a temporary job and a lot of them keep jumping towards “greener” fields based on the “hot' vehicle of the year.

In Cleveland, Ohio there was a dealership that went against all odds in the turnover melee. They might hire a new sales person once or twice a year, only to replace those who were retiring. The average tenure for a sales professional was over 20 years. Customers were always amazed at the longevity and loved to know that there would always be familiar faces when they went to the dealership. Now that's a unique difference in the auto industry!

The real story, however, is that the dealer principal was smart enough to utilize this unique difference to build more sales. Every newspaper advertisement was framed with pictures of the sales team. Every sales person was pictured, with their name, in every ad. The pictures within the frame hardly ever changed. If someone was retiring, the ads would make mention of it. If someone new came on board, that too was highlighted.

This created an almost subliminal message that the dealership was predicated on the long-term expertise of the individual members of the sales team.

That's one of the reasons why I urge agencies to provide individual pages on their website for the staff. Help each member, from producer to CSR, to build their personal identity with your clients. Clients bond with these people – they are truly your most unique difference. Capitalize on it.

Jack Burke is the President of Sound Marketing, Inc., Editor of ProgramBusinessNews, and author of Relationship Aspect Marketing and Creating Customer Connections. Jack can be reached by phone at 1-800-451-8273, by e-mail at jack@soundmarketing.com or by visiting http://www.soundmarketing.com.