The other day I decided to make homemade pizza. Why? Because I read a story that counted for the first time a pizza maker from Australia had won in Italy the world championship pizza and it was the first time the winner was a non – Italian. Out of curiosity I looked if I found your recipe and found it ! ! And as it was unlikely that the whole family we left to Melbourne for testing, we decided to make it at home. I went to buy all the ingredients to the supermarket and when the time came to buy flour weird thing happened to me. I did not know which one to choose. I counted 12 different brands and offered me all basically the same: flour and nothing but flour! But I did not want to buy just flour, he wanted the best flour!
A gourmet meal that would live up pizza that had awakened many expectations at home. Buy the most expensive assured me make any difference? I repeated the exercise entering the site of a US supermarket and then things changed. I found some 20 brands and about 50 varieties. With packaging with all kinds of emotional apelos, bright colors and explicit descriptions. Chefs flour, flour for breads, desserts and flour, among many other varieties, flour for crispy pizzas, thin, thick mass, etc.
How I not am going to make a perfect pizza if I were offering perfect meal? And here we enter a very important issue and unfortunately very little known in these latitudes. It is what Americans call “unique selling proposition” what I would translate as “unique selling proposition” or “differential” of our product or service. Try to beat our competition without a good differential is like trying to sail without wind. It is very difficult or almost impossible. Many people confuse the differential with a slogan. But it’s not the same. A slogan is a call of attention to the brand and probably all our competitors could also say of themselves. While the “unique selling proposition” is a business differentiation designed to be the reason why customers will buy our product or service. Examples of “unique selling propositions”
- The JetBlue airline offers its passengers first class seats, more legroom and DirecTV programming on all its aircraft at the same price as other airlines
- The Dutch Boy paint factory understood that paint cans were heavy, difficult to open, difficult to close, difficult to pour and difficult to transport. But people do not buy cans of paint but painted walls, resolved to create a package that is easy to open, close, pouring and transport. They based their entire marketing at that differential. The result was a lot higher sales, wider distribution and greater price!
- The TOMS shoes are striking, comfortable, lightweight and inexpensive. However, none of that was enough to keep them alive in business. What they found as differential was giving away a pair of shoes to whoever ala by every pair sold. And that came back strong in consumer and business took off with great strength!
- M & M chocolates proclaim that their chocolate melts in your mouth and not in your hands as with almost all other brands
- Domino’s Pizza became known worldwide for its commitment to give their free pizza if they were not able to deliver fresh and hot in less than 30 minutes. Then they had to stop the repeated use by traffic accidents were the betrayers causing the trouble to reach the deadline, but this difference was in the minds of everyone.
Examples are many and the goal is to centralize all marketing so that differential to give customers a justification to buy our products or services. Conclusion … No conclusion! What there is the next step. What is the difference in your business? What does your office beyond your alleged implicit professional competence? And your restaurant? And your clothing factory? And your transport company? And your insurance company? And your school?
Find out how you can be different in different ways that your customers would like. And if you do not see anything different in your business then Ask immediate changes in the same Every business has a unique selling proposition, whether implicit or explicit. Only implicit mean very little differentiation in relation to competition. We seek values beyond the implicit. And explicit Make them!
Remember that information is inexpensive, the care is expensive and time priceless. Customers save time and give them greater convenience they are good places to start looking fora good differential. The lessons are all around us and to our competitors can provide us with ideas and inspiration. Ultimately only it depends on ourselves to find the way to have a unique business and far more profitable. And the pizza? It was fantastic!