Finding the Uber in Your Industry

You’ve heard me talk about things like the star principle, or finding the gap, or positioning…

But what are these things, really?

Why did Apple go through the roof? Uber? AirB’n’B?

Simple. They delivered. They made a difference. They didn’t copy everyone else.

They offered something people really wanted.

Uber = cheaper transport, good service, control.

Apple = smoother experience with iphone.

AirB’n’B: more cost effective, homely accommodation.

But this doesn’t just happen in their industry, it can happen in virtually any industry…

The question is: where are the frustrations?

For instance, my kitchen drain clogged up the other day.

We called the plumber back who fixed it a few months ago. He was there for 5 minutes, charged us $400.00. Was a pig.

We called back. Said the problem had reared it’s head again.

He said, that’s fine… we’ll come out again and charge you for the service.

Now we’re sitting there, frustrated.

And I imagine we aren’t the only ones.

And I’m thinking, if I was a plumber, there’s a way to take away the customers pain and offer something different which really cuts through.

Perhaps a drain cleaning process with everything included which will fix your drain 99 percent of the time?

I don’t know if that’s possible, and as a plumber, you might lose business out of it…

But the iPhone put the iPod out of business too.

Sometimes you’ve got to do that, or someone else will.

Now that idea may not be practical. Perhaps you can’t clean your own drains. Perhaps it’s too risky. And perhaps the plumber who cleaned our drains is right to recharge us because it’s another problem, and he actually did fix our original problem.

Well, if that’s the issue, perhaps the answer is to have a video that he can actually show us what the issue was so we can see that he’s done an incredible job and has this amazing technology.

And perhaps a plumber can invent a system for this, so their customers are really happy.

You get what I mean, though.

Opportunities are everywhere in your industry. You can be the next Uber. But you’ve got to think more deeply about your client and what their needs, frustrations, etc. are.