Why Today’s Businesses Must Be “Uncopyable” by Steve Miller
Why do your customers do business with you? I bet it’s because of your excellent customer service, right? Or maybe it’s that innovative product you just launched. Guess what? Your competition is saying the same thing about their company.
Businesses today need to rethink their competitive strategy in order to create a true advantage over the competition. You need to be Uncopyable.
What does that mean? Let’s take a closer look.
Advancements in technology have made it very difficult for businesses to create unique products. In fact, it’s getting harder and harder to differentiate, and if your competition can copy you, then you are not unique.
Okay, so maybe your competitive advantage is the superior customer service you provide. That may sound great, but think about it. What exactly does that mean? Do you make ordering product easy? Do you deliver on your promises? Do you quickly resolve issues when they arise? Well, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do anyway? Aren’t these the basics of customer service? Plus, I guarantee you that your competitors are also touting their amazing customer service.
And you certainly don’t want to compete based on price. That’s a losing battle.
The good news is that it’s pretty easy to break the mold and create a meaningful attachment with your customers—in other words, to become Uncopyable.
As I say in my book, Uncopyable: How to Create an Unfair Advantage Over Your Competition, “Developing an Uncopyable advantage requires creating a strategy with new, contrarian eyes—looking at your industry, your competitors, and especially your customers, through a different filter.”
Uncopyable Strategies
I believe there are essentially four strategies to becoming Uncopyable:
Branding
Stealing Genius
Experience
Storytelling
Let’s start with branding. No, this doesn’t mean stamping your logo on everything imaginable. And it goes well beyond uniquely identifying your products and services. Branding is what makes you memorable.
Think, for example, of Harley-Davidson. The Harley-Davidson brand doesn’t sell motorcycles; it sells fantasy and community. That’s what clearly differentiates it from the competition. Harley-Davidson has nailed a branding proposition that’s difficult for other companies to copy.
I would argue that effective branding is not thinking outside of the box but rather building your own box.
Effective branding is not thinking outside of the box but rather building your own box.
Next is Stealing Genius, a term I came up with. The idea is to go out and study “alien” organizations and experiences—ones that are outside of your industry. Do not rely on internal benchmarking because you never get new ideas from your competition. If you master Stealing Genius, you’ll be hard to copy.
There are several different approaches to Stealing Genius, including studying specific geniuses. Take Disney parks, for instance. What is Disney really good at? How does Disney enhance customer experience? Once you start to study Disney from such a perspective, you’ll start to see what it does that can be extrapolated to your business.
Disney is obviously just one example. There are a lot of companies that you can study and a lot of genius to steal if you keep your radar up.
Third is creating an Uncopyable experience. An Uncopyable experience is what really enables your business to build an attachment with your customers. It’s the star of the Uncopyable approach. As outlined in my book, there are a few good ways to do this, including creating an enviable club and making your customers feel like rock stars.
Then there’s storytelling, which can be an extremely powerful marketing and branding tool. Here’s the thing about stories: People connect with stories. Stories create an invisible bond between you and your customers. The fact is that every company has a story to tell, and there are at least a half dozen different types of storytelling. Which type of story does your company have?
These Uncopyable strategies are just a sampling of the tools and resources that your business can employ, whether you’re B2B, B2C, or a small or large company. Find the ideas that best resonate with you.
It’s important to point out that none of today’s Uncopyable companies have achieved their leading position through superior products or customer service. Those are easy to copy. Focus on branding, innovation, experience and storytelling to become a true differentiator. They are what make you Uncopyable.
For 25 Uncopyable Marketing Tips (FREE ebook), go to https://bit.ly/357cVYe.
To learn more about the strategies and tools to make your company Uncopyable, check out the updated and expanded edition of Uncopyable: How to Create and Unfair Advantage Over Your Competition, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Porchlight Book Company, Google Play, Apple Books, and other fine retailers. Steve Miller is an author, a professional/virtual speaker, and a business advisor. Since founding The Adventure LLC in 1984, Miller’s consulting clients have ranged from solo entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 megacorporations, including Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and Procter & Gamble. To get a free copy of “The Old Rules of Business That Still Matter,” go to theadventure.com/sw.