Do you struggle to figure out how to describe your competitive advantage? I hate to admit it but I have too. For many years I have been known for offering strategic planning services. I use the term strategic planning on my website as it has always felt like the closest description of my offer and a term leaders relate to. However, to me, it doesn’t convey the competitive advantage and always falls short because it is too much about the process and not enough about the outcome. It is what I call a “garbage term”; it means so many different things it doesn’t mean anything.
When people ask “What do you do?” do you tell people you offer IT services, make plastic packaging or are in the fertilizer business? Or are you able to, in a few short words, tell them in a way that sets your work apart? How can we answer that question in a way that conveys the value that makes your company different or better?
For me, I think I found the answer the other day while getting an Uber ride to the airport. The driver was a young man who was getting his masters of engineering and wanted to change the world by deploying real time data to create new solutions for traditional problems. Hmmm, that sounds a lot like what I do. Maybe I am not a planner but an engineer. A strategic engineer. From now on, that will be my answer to the question, “What do I do?”
What will be your answer?
I would welcome the opportunity to help you strategically engineer your competitive advantage and use it to achieve and surpass your performance goals!