Everyone tells you to differentiate but are you comfortable that you are different enough. A tool that I use to make a strong impact on a client is one that is from the book, The Chasm Companion: A Field Guide to Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado (Revised)
The benefit your service/product is to the user:
A. Provide Modest Enhancements
B. Add substantial value
C. Gives dramatic productivity gains.
D. Changes the competitive field
The pain of obtaining the benefit to the user:
4. Significant reengineering, new systems
3. Major changes to existing systems
2. Modest changes to existing systems
1. Integrates with existing systems
When completing this of course the more opinion and arguments the better. You will have to create a consensus, however and a decision reached. Sometimes positioning the competitor’s products/service around yours can assist. Are more changes required, do they add less or more value? If you end up at square A4, no Gain with a lot of pain, you can probably throw the product/service away. It simply will not work. In fact A2 and A3 should probably cause the same reaction. The truth to the matter is that unless you are doing a startup, you probably end up in the twilight zone. The problem being in the twilight zone, according to author Geoffrey Moore is that these offerings will cause little market movement. In other words, they are not COMPELLING. The other areas follow this pattern:
- D4, you are in an early market category.
- D2/D3 is about market segmentation and making the pain a favorable trade-off to that group.
- C1/D1 means that your product can move to widespread adoption and you are ready for that transition.
- A1, B1 is being accepted in your target market and an easy solution.
This description is a take-off from the book but to fully understand you have to read the Crossing the Chasm
. It is a must read and still today it is one of most cited books in the innovation area. I have bought the book around 5 times. I keep giving it away.
However, the point to this entire exercise for me is differentiation relative to the gain and pain of the customer. It is an exercise that enables you to look at your product/service more objectively from your customer’s eyes. Are you really that different if all you are doing is complicating their life without making a significant gain? Another item it addresses is your market segmentation. Are you targeting a customer that your product/service causes little pain? If you are in the twilight zone, where are you headed? What will it take to move you to the outer perimeter? It is a simple answer make yourself more valuable by making the gain greater or the pain less!
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