CapitalQ Fast Business – Edition #002 “Differentiate from all the rest (Labor’s Election Strategy?)”

Transcript

Hi folks so I’m here at the rather beautiful Sepilok Nature Resort here in Sabah in Malaysian Borneo and we’ve had a massive day yesterday wildlife viewing and wildlife photographing it was a 12 hour day of non-stop photography so it was a great day pretty hard work.

So this morning we’ve got a much more leisurely start to the day before we jump on a boat around lunch time to head to our next destination.

So I’ve taken the opportunity to do a little bit of reading and I was catching up on Seth Godin’s blog and I was reminded of Seth’s book which was my first introduction to him and that was called Purple Cow and it’s all about differentiation, differentiating your business and standing out from the crowd

And you know it’s something in business we all know about we’ve all heard about.

But so many small business owners really struggle putting it into practice.

So one way to think about it and try to come up with your answer to how you differentiate is to ask yourself and answer this question and answer it both for yourself and then answer it for your customers so…

Why should your customers choose to buy from you over, any and all other alternatives, including the alternative option of doing nothing!

So why should they buy from you over any other alternative option.

And there’s an example of differentiation and some really clever differentiation going on right now in the public eye in Australia and that’s with our federal election.

Now in the past I’ve really avoided getting into the politics side of things traditionally taking the view it’s not part of our role for our clients but look this time around I do feel a little bit differently.

I am frankly quite frustrated and quite concerned about some of the policies that Bill Shorten and the Labor Party are promoting and probably if they get into power they’re going to be implementing.

But you have to say that they’ve done a fantastic job of differentiating themselves from the alternative and you know I highly suspect two years ago go give or take Bill sat down with his strategists and his strategists have said to him…

Look Bill you know you’re not particularly likeable you’re not particularly popular if you are in any way similar to the alternatives you and your policies are in any way similar or comparable to the alternative then you’re going to lose.

So you need to stand apart, differentiate yourself, and I think they’ve gone about that process pretty cleverly and you know they’ve certainly taken ownership of that and they’ve gone all out to differentiate themselves and their policies from the alternatives.

Now as I say their policies are pretty scary and you know the long-term impacts some of them will have on the country our economy and our prosperity you know I am concerned about it.

I’m not too sure if everyone’s considered the longer term ramifications but nevertheless he’s done a good job there.

Now I just hope he believes in those policies because it’s one thing about differentiating you know if you’re going to go through the process and differentiate yourself you’ve got to believe in it there’s no point putting on an act there’s no point faking it.

So I certainly hope Bill believes in what he’s doing because if he’s just doing it for the sake of getting elected well that’s not right and the consequences could be catastrophic.

Anyhow that’s it for today we’ll see you again.