Differentiate Or Die: Marketing’s Magic Bullet

Jonathan Fields |
Finding Work
| November 15th

From entrepreneurship to yoga to writing, I teach a lot of people a lot of different things. But, inevitably, when any part of the process comes around to using a certain basket of skills to make a living, we land on one major question—what makes you different than anyone else who’s doing the exact same thing you’re doing?

And, more often than not the answer is some variation of “duhhhhhh…what?!” Then comes a laundry list of skills, jobs, clients, references, portfolio pieces and more. All of which leaves me with 30-minutes less of life and still asking the same question. What makes you so different than the 100 other people who also have big, fat, snazzy resumes, skills, experiences and blah, blah, blah?

Why did I say blah blah blah? Because, in addition to training people to land business, I’ve been on the hiring side both for companies I’ve launched and built and for other organizations. And, after the first 15 or so interviewees pass through your door, blah blah blah is pretty much all you hear. Everyone starts to sound like the teacher in Charlie brown, unless you can…

Show how you can do what nobody else can do.

Question is how? How do you demonstrate a level of differentiation that is so strong it immediately sets you apart from the field? Hmmm. For some people, it’s an easy challenge, but for 99% of us, it’s brutally hard. But, here’s the problem. If you can’t differentiate yourself from all the other people who are slinging the very same claims of rock-star talent and magic results, how do you expect a client to?

Here’s an example.

Earlier this year, I was contacted by someone to write some hard-hitting marketing copy for a fitness infomerical product on extremely short notice. I did my usual shtick on the phone and, then, asked that magical question that always guides how I choose to differentiate myself. “What’s important about the person you choose to do this job?”

By simply asking that question, I’d already begun to differentiate myself. Nobody else asked. Then, I sat back and listened. And, within the first sixty seconds, I knew what I had to do. Here’s what I said…

“Okay, so you mentioned you needed this done in 48 hours. I write great copy faster than anyone, but I have to tell you, right now, I am slammed with work. [building value and urgency]

Here’s the thing, though. With your timing, the only conceivable way for you to get killer copy that fast is to work with someone who not only writes marketing copy, but really gets the core motivation, psychological triggers and buy buttons for the fitness market. Anyone else, it’ll just take too long for them to research the market and get up to speed.

You already know, I am sure, that I’ve not only written extensively for your market, but I’ve built two leading companies in the health and fitness space and been a personal trainer and yoga instructor, too. In fact, I may be the only person in the country who has both the industry experience and copy chops to do this job at the level you need in less than 48-hours.

And, from what you’ve told me about your product, it actually sounds like it would be a blast writing this for you. Hmmm. I’ll tell you what, if I can get another day on one of my other projects right now, I may be able to make this work.”

We talked for a while after that, but I pretty much knew the sale was over. I quoted top of the market fees and the next day, a Fedex with a 50% deposit landed on my doorstep.

What made this go so smoothly? Three things:

I identified what was important to him about the job, and
I showed him not how good I was, but how different I was, then
I demonstrated how the specific differentiating factors would allow me to do the job better and faster than nearly anyone else on the planet.

When you differentiate, you are no longer fungible [just love that word].

If you stop pitching how good you are and start pitching how different you are and how that will make a prospect’s experience with you better, faster and easier than anyone else, you’ll not only land nearly every job you pitch, you’ll be able to write your ticket when it comes to fees.

Why? Because, if a client truly believes nobody else can do the job the way you can do it, price is no longer an issue.

What if you simply aren’t different than everybody else?

Then, my friends, you’ve got a big problem. You might as well just hang it up. Oh, oh. Actually, wait a minute. I just remembered something. Even if you think you are just like everyone else…you’re not! You just need to spend a bigger chunk of time listing out what makes you so different.

Maybe it’s the fact that you’ve animated more 3-D dragon lips than anyone else. Or, you developed a process in Photoshop that allows you to create mind-blowing images. Or, your copy generated $1-million in sales in 24-hours. Or, you have some highly specialized mix of unusual subject-area expertise and industry skills.

Maybe you do architectural renderings with your navel or deliver updates through a state of the art secure online client interface. Maybe you guarantee overnight service. Whatever it is, there’s got to be something that makes you not just experienced, but outrageously unique in a way that translates to better than anyone else.

And, my friends, if you’ve wracked your brain and you just can’t come up with anything compelling. Guess what. Neither can your prospects. Guaranteed, if you’re shooting blanks here, your career is in big trouble. And, if that’s you, then the time has come to do something bold…

Differentiate or die!

Do something now to make yourself different in a way that makes you indispensable. Here are a handful of examples of how different people have done just that, just to get your juices flowing:

Blogging – with a bazillion blogs about making money online, Maki launches DoshDosh.com earlier this year, writes extraordinarily well-researched full-blown articles, instead of quick-hits lists and tears up the blogosphere in a matter of months.
Copywriting – marketing maverick, Harlan Kilstein, draws upon his Ph.D in education and 30-year study of the science of persuasion, therapeutic metaphor and NLP to brand himself as the premier NLP copywriter in the world.
Photography – My old neighbor from 55th Street (okay, so I don’t remember the dude’s name), a former real-estate developer, gets the bug to shoot photos and breaking from the entire industry, specializes only in high-volume table-top catalogue shots, creates a process that is so efficient, he can shoot hundreds of items in a day and charges a flat day-rate, rather than a usage rate. He’s booked for months making high six-figures while other photogs with decades of experience live hand-to-mouth.
Design – This one is actually amongst the easiest fields to create strong points of differentiation, because anyone who has been doing it long enough to have stopped ripping off their influences and mentors has developed their own style. Just the way you can look at Water Lillies and know it’s a Monet, you can look at FSw or ZenHabits.net and know it’s a Ta’eed (props to the C & C team). So, advice here is to just immerse yourself in the process of cultivating your own strong style and voice.
Coding – Okay, I am not a code-monkey, so I don’t have a good example here, but I wanted to include this in topic, so that all the CM’s who read this can share ways they’ve been able to differentiate themselves in the comments below.
Marketing – Three words… Seth. God. In. Do I really need to say more? Snarky, original, authoritative, provocative, viral, a true purple cow.
Bodegas – yeah, so technically, a bodega isn’t a freelancer, but the little grocery store by me does one of the coolest things I’ve seen as a way to differentiate themselves from the five other mega-stores around it. When you walk in, strategically located throughout the store are those plastic, tear-off bags that you put your veggies and frozen chicken in (if you’re a bacteria freak like me). But, rather than just laying the bags out or having them on the roll, they’ve opened them all and rolled them down like socks ready to go on, so you don’t have to sit their cursing the fact that you can’t get the damn thing’s open. Genius, sheer genius!

Share how you’ve been able to differentiate yourself in the comment section below.

Tags: New Leads

Jonathan Fields |
Website |
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Jonathan Fields is a giddy dad, husband, New Yorker, multi-time health and fitness industry entrepreneur, recovering S.E.C./mega-firm hedge-fund lawyer, slightly-warped, unusually-stretchy, spiritually-inclined, obsessed with creation, direct-response copywriter, small-biz and online marketing-maven, speaker, entrepreneur-coach, yoga-teacher, columnist, author, once-a-decade hook-rug savant and blogger…gone wild. You can find him playing daily at his career, marketing and entrepreneurship blog at “Jonathan Fields | Awake At The Wheel.”

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