Your competitive edge is much more closer than you might realise...

Over the last few years we have supported, engaged with and received feedback from the businesses (from startups to small businesses to professional service providers) we supported across over 83 countries.

The 2 main challenges entrepreneurs and professionals face are:

1. How to find clients (the accesss to markets challenge)
2. How to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

This week's newsletter focuses on #2 and it is for you who are starting out or are a small company (loosely defined to be under 5-10 employees).

Your competitive edge is much closer than you realise!

Mark Zuckerberg recently said something cool on the Rogan podcast. When he started facebook he never thought it would be big. He kept thinking that what he offers surely someone else is doing or will do globally. It never occurred to him it would take off the way it did because he didn't think it was that groundbreaking (here is the link to when he speaks about this).

In my experience too many entrepreneurs and professionals spend too much time worrying about what others are doing and not enough time focusing on delivering real value to people's lives. This might be a bit controversial in that everyone tells you to watch your competitors closely. My experience is that doing that is important but if you only do that you are focusing your energy and resources on the wrong targets. Watching your competitors should be what you do when you are driving on the highway, with the competition being the sides of the road and hence not your main focus.

"people do business with people and not with businesses"

Fundamental to the above is the understanding that people do business with people. Very rarely do we believe what companies tell us in their brochures. We instinctively know that companies fundamentally only care about us in the context of monetization. But when you meet the actual banker, account manager, sales person or the founder (sometime via a podcast or interview) on a somewhat personal level we create a bond that - in my experience - supercedes any competitive edge that your service or product offers over others.

When your create a personal connection with a client we create a bond supercedes any competitive edge that your service or product offers or doesn't over competitive offerings        

I have even witnessed (though not quantified) a substantial amount of tolerance for sub-standard services and products if the relationship between the service provider and customer is genuine (a tip: learn to communicate and update your customers/investors and partners in good and bad times... people have a high tolerance for setbacks but not for lack of being kept up to date - noone likes suprises).

Your service doesn't need to be perfect nor better than your competitor's!

I wrote the above to drive home the point that your product or service doesn't need to be absolutely brilliant and heads and shoulders above the rest. Take Proton, a tiny Swiss company started by scientists that offers secure mail (and other things). Today 70 million businesses and people use their services. What do they offer? Fundamentally nothing that google works or microsoft don't offer (on a superficial level... am sure there are technical aspects that are offer more sophisticated distinctions)... but what they did get right is that they made it personal. They created trust. They formed a relationship between the user on a more fundamental level that made you feel that those driving the company really have your interests at heart and that their philosophy is somewhat aligned to your boundaries of acceptance.

One of the reasons Apple is growing sales has very little to do with technical superiority (I have used many OS and like them all for different reasons, but for me an OS is like a car: a tool to get something done, so don't really care for one over another). Samsung and others are equally amazing technologies. But at Samsung (I am a customer of theirs) I have zero connection with the company. I don't know what they stand for. At Apple I see Tim Cook saying (and implementing) steps to protect customers right to privacy (how this will work with a desire to increase in-app recommendation revenue in the platform I am not sure... but that\s implementation issue). Google Works (basically the non ad version of google's services) is fantastic (I'm a business customer of their for 15 years now) from pricing ( ca. USD 11 per month for unlimited storage) and security (I have hardcore security layers protecting me) perspective but I have absolutely no relationship with them and would leave them tomorrow without a bat of an eye (I just dont have the time to migrate now).

BE-YOU (TIFUL)

Your competitive edge is YOU my dear friends. Not how brilliant a lawyer you think you are, how analytical your auditing and bookkeeping skills are or how big your gardening company is. Neither it is how perfect your offerings are, how much experience you have or how many clients you serve.

Your competitive edge is your ability to connect and estabilish a rapport with your customers.

I walked past this shop in Italy last week and absolutely loved the name of the shop. Such a beautiful reminder to not forget to be Beautiful You when you are starting and growing your business and less a reflection of your competitors.

But what this slow down the growth of my company?

On a more serious note, while it might feel daunting in terms of your global ambitions, this offers some amazing opportunities and a huge competitive advantage when you are competing with bigger companies:

1. Start local (i.e. your road, neighbourhood, community. Build your business serving your neighbours (which is why I often tell people to work from buzzing coworking spaces full of potential clients). The relationship you build with them over time is the lube that will smoothen the transition to your offering.
2. Offer existing services but with a more personal touch. Make it personal, and not business. Really care about your customer's success. Really feel the pain they are going through and address it (another opportunnity: if you don't have money to start a business there are tons of opportunities to be resellers and affiliates... just be honest in how you do this).
3. Don't worry if your products or services are offered by large corporates. I have lost count of the amount of small businesses I have paid more to for the same services that bigger companies give me cheaper just because I had a bond with the entrepreneur (a case in point is a small law firm that I use for our global affairs rather than a big company because the team there really looks after me instead of seeing me as a cow to be milked).
4. Yes. That means spending more time with customers which might slow down your ability to reach exponential growth. But sometime growing slowly isn't such a bad thing. Most exponential growth brings with it exponential problems and if often the fastest way to crash your business. You need to foundations of good tested systems, support structures and sales channels that are working to grow a company and those things - despite what we wish - can't be rushed.
5. Covid has thrown an incredible abundance of global talent from cheaper markets (purchasing power parity anyone?). Tap into that to develop phenomenal cost-effective (not cheap... this should be a win-win) army of customer success managers... people whose job isn't (well, not principally at least) to sell but to make the customer happy. You won't believe how profitable a long term relationship can be with a client. My ridiculously talented and youth empowerment passione friend Marc Ashton is a wonderful example of this. He and his Decusatio Angels team help smaller companies by handling all backoffice aspects, from social media to sales to customer relationships to marketing to PR etc, allowing the business managers to focus on the core of their businesses. Marc's company isn't huge (I think 9 people?) and the services itself on paper doesn't sound too differentiated, but they have some of the best names as clients and deservidly so: they offer a really personal experience and take the customer's challenges as a personal challenge.

Some caveats:

1. It doesn't mean you can sell shit. You need to meet a minimun standard of expectations.
2. Relationships do have a breaking point and if you consistently misrepresent and under-deliver. And the divorce will be ugly.
3. Like all advice the above is meant to get your thinking juices flowing... do decide which parts and in what quantity is relevant for your specific journeys.

Hope the above helps.

Have an amazing week my friends, wherever you are when you read this. And remember: it is always darkest just before light.