After church today we started down the road. Normally we eat out each Sunday lunch. So I asked the “regular” question: “Where do you want to go?”
I think you’ve been there. You really don’t want anything in particular; no specific ethnicity of food.
No one could make a decision.
My wife mentioned, “We must be back for the Christmas production at 2, so it’ll have to be quick”. Immediately we ruled out several of our usuals. That limited us to fast food restaurants. And everything seemed to be the same.
When everything’s the same; it’s almost impossible to make a decision.
You have a business and products. Most develop a product line and try to make it as good or better than the leading competition. It must be competitive and you become fixated on it. You keep your mind’s eye on it all the time.
The problem? Business developers start to market their products and tend to use the same words and benefits that their competition uses. In fact, we saw (as we passed all the fast food restaurants today) signs that bragged about golden fries, juicy hamburgers, super value meals, etc. When you use the same descriptions, it becomes harder for your potential customer to choose. They’ll end up choosing what is closest, cheapest or what they’ve always used.
So, what to do?
- Know your competition. Their words. Benefits. Successes. And who they market to.
- Figure out what “pain” they are trying to solve in a particular audience.
- Know your product inside and out. And the potential audience you have.
- Choose something wildly different that speaks to the same pain (if it’s the greatest) or choose another prominent pain. Or a different audience.
If you can’t come up with a solution that uniquely solves a predominant pain in a particular audience; your product will fail. Like a lot of restaurants do.
We ended up going to Wendy’s. Why? We had a coupon.
