How to Differentiate From the Pack…

We meet many businesses that have achieved considerable success and want to go to the next stage. They realise that they cannot stand still because in today’s hectic and hugely competitive world competition can and will steal the momentum. Then the business truly starts to suffer.

Continual growth and development doesn’t come about by reaching for the latest ‘fad’ and jumping on the bandwagon. For example given that the vast majority of businesses realise that AI can be a great asset to business, the vast majority of businesses will jump on that ‘bandwagon’, along with their competitors, which means that there is still no differential between them. As you may recall the advent of Social Media saw many businesses see this as a panacea to all of their problems – “We’ll put our products on X, Y and Z this will work for us’’. Many, many, months and years later (in some cases) businesses are still waiting for their first enquiry. Social media is a great tool, but only if the right platform is used and other key facets like a ‘Call to action’ are well though through. Just like ‘We are all over social media’ you will soon hear ‘We use AI too’. What will differentiate your business from the competition then? Given that scenario there remains no answer to the customer/ client question that asks ‘Why should I buy from your business and not that of your competition?’

The smart businesses act in the ‘Action Zone’ they don’t act in haste and jump too quickly but equally they recognise that too much procrastination can be fatal. The Action Zone sits right in the middle where businesses look at opportunities to progress (like AI), analyse them carefully and then ‘test and measure’ their merits before launching full steam ahead.

Someone once said ‘try a lot of stuff and keep what works’! This makes sense provided the ‘stuff’ you are trying remains consistent with your purpose and can be integrated into your business culture – the hearts and minds of your people. If your people do not buy into your purpose you either have the wrong people (it happens regularly!) or the purpose is somehow not clear or not right. Your purpose should be why your business exists – as Simon Sinek says in his book ‘Find your Why’. Tinderbox’s purpose is ‘To make businesses successful or more successful’. The new initiatives we try – like our new online platform – are different, they look to stimulate progress but still deliver on our purpose. We have scope, within that purpose to try other things – which we will. Crucially all of the Tinderbox Directors and people know our purpose and our group follow that purpose passionately and enthusiastically creating a great culture of wanting to help businesses more and more.

People buy into a purpose and then deliver on it under their own steam. Whatever you try never forget to use that massive ‘human computer’ that sits in your business – your people. Get them to use their heads to think forward, think differently, think of things no one else has thought of and that no algorithm can compute. This is the way to remain ahead of the pack.