How do you differentiate your product and service from your competitors?

One way is to look at macro trends and tweak your product or service to take advantage of developing trends.

Just found trendwatching yesterday—sort of a bite-sized American Demographics.

Make sure to check out their newsletter. The current issue addresses Insperiences, customers bringing professional-grade experiences & facilities into their homes, including specialty rooms like

• Home theatres
• Elevators
• Private rooms, like a soundproof entertainment rooms
• Wine rooms

How can your business take advantage of a trend like this? We have one customer, an HVAC contractor, who specializes in installing the environmental systems for wine cellars.

Lots of other similar opportunities surrounding this and other trends.

What do you get when you combine Click-n-Clack from Car Talk with Tom Peters, a leading business speaker?

An inspiring and thought-provoking radio show called Brain Brew.

They describe themselves with a different metaphor:

Brain Brew is to be to the “American Dream” what This Old House is to home repair. Brain Brew Radio is about providing ideas and encouragement for helping American Revolutionaries. Brain Brew inspires your hopes through practical ideas, backed by data with a healthy dose of caffeinated encouragement & humor.

I just listened to their program from Dec 20th and it seemed apropriate given yesterday’s post about Focus.

Hosts Doug and Dave spoke with several business owners from Tempe, Arizona, brainstorming about how to promote their businesses in the face of the Big Box retailers and other large competitors.

They talk to a wide range of businesses:

• Cookies from Home
• Jerry’s Audio
• Mill’s End Cafe
• Changing Hands Bookstore
• Stinkweeds Music

But their theme for each one is the same—what’s unique and compelling about your business?

The conversation with Michael from Jerry’s Audio was particularly compelling. Michael said that their differentiator was service, something I hear often from business owners.

Doug & Dave really drove home the point that saying that isn’t enough, you have to give some meat to it, to dimensionalize it somehow.

One suggestion they had to do this was to check with the Better Business Bureau on the number of complaints that had been filed against their large competitors. After which, the store could promote their service by saying “In impartial reports filed with the Better Business Bureau…”

Worth a listen.