Where To Find Your Competitive Advantage
Competitive advantage lies in doing the hard things that initially feel beyond us. And also the mundane things that almost seem beneath us.
The exceptional or extraordinary result comes from doing ordinary things well in small, persistent ways to generate momentum.
As long as your competitor employs humans, the battle for new clients or new customers is as much about willpower and perseverance as new ideas.
That can mean building more exciting work-related incentives into our schedule in return for completing the mundane but critical tasks.
The prehistoric part of our brain that gets easily excited or distracted by the new and the shiny is where novelty can sabotage what’s truly important.
We can create business momentum by consistently doing the basics to a higher standard than competitors. People remember how using a business service or product made them feel, and that’s going to influence whether they wish to repeat that experience.
Difference Between Past & Future
There is one path backwards. There are infinite paths forward.
Writing a weekly newsletter about the last step in marketing - promotion - and how to achieve that using digital tactics, can mean different things to different people.
We’ve covered a lot in the first seven issues.
But do we fully appreciate the power of how we allocate our time?
How we choose to invest our time effects outcomes. It sounds obvious but ask someone to do something the right way and you’re likely to be told, “maybe in the future, we don’t have the time right now”.
Time is finite no matter how big or small your company is in size. Creating time is a skill few people have the patience to develop and instead money is spent in the pursuit of shortcuts.
Creating The Right WorkFlow Now Creates More Time In The Future
This week while writing a B2B proposal I had to make our unique selling points (USPs) as clear and easy to understand as possible.
When what you do for a living is second nature to you, we can forget how unfathomable it might be to others.
How do you save time and get to the end result faster? Answer: Prepare Your Workflow.
One way I’ve described it is, “I spend Monday sharpening my axe. Then I spend the rest of the week chopping down trees.” The point is doing the right preparation upfront will save you a lot more time in the longrun.
Ad-hoc-ing our way through critical junctions is a sure way to waste time. We know this when we take a wrong turn on a dual carriageway and it can take awhile to get back oncourse.
Method in the Multiverse of Madness
Let’s look at the issue of hiring people and how decisions can add or subtract time.
When hiring you can boil the decision making down to: can you do the job (skill level), will you do the job (motivation, consistency, availability), how do you work with others (people skills). FirstRound.com leadership articles cover these points brilliantly. Everything else is a nice to have.
Companies that hire the wrong fit waste more time than building the workflow to get it right first time. They often hire people who can bluff the best and no-one was in the room to sense check. Now everyone within the company’s time is negatively affected. THAT’s where time gets wasted. The butterfly effect of a mistake which is difficult to reverse.
When hiring a vendor or supplier, or subscribing to a service, often the core USPs are will this save me time or money? Can it help create more time or money?
We forget that people don’t care about the hammer and nails they buy, only the outcome they create.
As we reach the end of another year, we can take a moment to look back and ask ourselves honestly - are we continuously busy & stressed because of inefficient ways of working? Could we redesign how we work to be more effective for the demands we know we will face in the coming months?
Companies, firms and brands outgrow old ways of doing things.
One of the best thought leaders on this topic is Marshall Goldsmith, whose books include, ‘What Got You Here Won’t Get You There’, and ‘Triggers’. He is a proven master at helping people, especially senior leaders, to recognise the things which they have unwittingly become blind to seeing.
As mindset coaches go, he might just be one of the very best.
News
Ayrshire: Ayr community project benefits from £14,000 Love Local boost - LINK
Glasgow: Ten festive things to do in Glasgow this week - LINK
Edinburgh: Luxury dog accessories business eyes new markets and products after record sales - LINK
Dundee: Launch of University of Dundee £44,000 Venture 2022 new business idea competition - LINK
Aberdeen: Elevator nets £2.8m of government cash to roll out entrepreneur support - LINK
Scottish Enterprise Funding Database - LINK
Who got 2021’s marketing predictions right – and absolutely wrong? - LINK
Data Science for SEO and Digital Marketing, Guide for beginners - LINK
Local SEO: Google rolls out another update - LINK
Facebook: Top Facebook Updates (December 2021 Edition) - LINK
Google: Does Personalized Advertising Work as Well as Tech Companies Claim? - LINK
Remarketing: Criteo To Acquire IPONWEB For $380 Million - LINK
3 Marketing Budget Trends You Need to Know [Video] - LINK
And Finally…
January is a peak time of year for people deciding to switch jobs. In a recent Twitter EcomChat the community discussed reasons people leave.
Industry expert Manley raises a great point about culture and the loudest person in the room.
Self-awareness and especially awareness of team culture, goes a long way to creating a space where people can do their best work.
Until next time in 2022 - good luck!
Andrew @ Big Pond
Enjoyed this newsletter? Feel free to share it.