If you sell a hammer that is like everyone else’s – I’m going to start to compare prices. One person may sell their hammer for $5.02, while the other for $6.97. But if I can’t tell the difference in quality, then as the customer, I will pick the cheapest.

You see in most cases, you want to avoid situations where you are pricing in the categories where you have to be compared to alternatives. Being compared to alternatives implies that you are not the one and only and that customers actively have to seek out to find if there are any differences between your hammer and the other guys hammer.

A better situation to be in is one where you customer doesn’t even decide to look at alternatives. Why on earth would they do that? It’s because they believe that you are the one and only person that can solve their problem for them. In other words, you solve a particular need for them in such a way that can’t be compared to alternatives.

This doesn’t come from spinning and hyping something that is not different. People will find out eventually if you have a regular hammer or not. The trick is to set out to do the difficult work of finding a deep human need and filling it in ways that people can’t compare.

Marketing has a history of feeling that they need to be different of have a “USP”.

Just be different and original – then people will seek you out.

Of course being different is important but useless if you are not relevant, add value or make a contribution.

So when setting out to be distinctive or when creating a distinctive thing, ask yourself: Is this going to make the highest level of contribution to the customer? Is this important to them right now?

Being different doesn’t start from the inside – it starts from the outside.

Results and impact happen on the outside.