Category: Differentiation

  • How Vulnerable are Your Customers? (part 4)

    In my previous blog post I described the current situation:  Now more than ever, your customers are being bombarded by competitive offers and even some of your most loyal customers are actually listening to your competitors. Your customers are vulnerable.  What can you do about it? The third thing you need to do is Leverage…

  • “Going Green”-Do Customers Really Care?

    Do customers really care about about vendors that go green?  Up until today, I’ve never seen anything beyond hype–vendors touting how green they really are in hopes of one-upping their competitors. Everyone has been jumping on a bandwagon, hoping to out-green their competitors. However, I’ve not seen any form of customer research that proves that…

  • 3 Essential Steps to Finding & Keeping the Best Clients…. & How to Cast Off the Worst Ones

    I’m excited to announce that I’m launching a new teleseminar series for executive leadership beginning in early March.  This series will discuss customer strategy topics for executive leadership including CEOs, CCOs, VPs and GMs and will consist of presentations & interviews with industry luminaries/exemplars. The first one is titled, “3 Essential Steps to Finding &…

  • Who cares what your competitors are charging?!

    Charge for the value that you are offering A famous direct-mail marketing consultant recently said, “You can charge whatever you want for your services.” While I think this advice is ludicrous, odds are high that you can charge much more for your services than you are. Most people set prices reactively, positioning themselves near the…

  • Pencils are all alike, aren’t they? Not anymore! A Superb Example of Differentiation

    A pencil is a pencil. You buy them by the carton (or even crate!) from whichever store has them on the cheapest sale. But not anymore! In a brilliant stroke of genius, Dixon Ticonderoga has introduced their “My Hold Right Pencil” a color-coded, triangular pencil that supposedly teaches kids how to hold a pencil correctly. …

  • Are you Undercharging for your Services? Differentiate on Value

    I read in one of Alan Weiss’ books the following quote:  “80% of people are undercharging for their value, because they are charging for their work instead.”  How many service providers know what their real value is to their customers?  How many are undercharging for these? In my experience, many large service providers have a…

  • How to Ruin a Good Ad

    Inside the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal, on the lower left corner where all the Tiffany’s ads usually are I found an intriguing ad for a diamond pendant.  I have always been interested in luxury goods advertisements ever since I started Opulenza.com, a premium, handcrafted corporate gift company specializing in handmade writing instruments. …