The worst place in the world for business people is to operate in a price driven crowded market. Ever thought of wearing a silly suit?No, I’m not being facetious! I remember trying to figure out how to stand out from the crowd when I was working in the world of Public Relations. I knew the Institute of PR’s definition of Public Relations backwards but, you know what?, so did everyone else. What would make me different? I recall thinking to myself that PR was all about profile and standing out from the crowd. How could I do the same myself? How could ‘I’ enhance the company brand.
That’s when I took to wearing a chess board suit at new business pitches and finishing each presentation with a display of balloon modelling! There was a serious message behind both because the suit, I told my audience, was all about being remembered. I became ‘the memory man’. My threads also said ‘this guy is creative’ or, on a bad day, maybe they thought I was a complete jerk! So what? If they thought that then I probably didn’t want them as clients. But, one thing’s for sure, I was never forgotten and, at the point of decision, I’m confident my company was always considered for the business.
Which is why you have to be very guarded about being exclusively price driven. Unless you are Walmart, Mcdonald’s or Coca Cola, how can you expect to compete on price? You simply don’t have the buying power or the ability to offer ‘loss leaders’ (products / services with no profit margin) for prolonged periods. Somehow you have to differentiate so that people do not judge you on price and price alone. If they do then you enter a downward spiral that you cannot hope to win unless your name is Bill Gates! Avoid the price challenge and make people love your differentiation so much, that they want to buy from you regardless of price.