My biggest fear is being mediocre – in life and in business. So I try to be different to stand out from the throng, sometimes with success, other times without. But is merely being different enough to take your business to the next coveted level?
Not according to Chris Garrett.
I had the pleasure of introducing myself as a groupie to Chris at Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger Training Day in Melbourne. Although the entire day was invaluable, I was particularly taken by Chris’ session on creating killer content.
Why? Because it made me completely rethink the way I present myself with just one statement:
You need to be different with an advantage.
Reflecting back, I was pretty good at being different, but not so good at always making sure it followed through with an advantage for the other party. So what could I do to change this?
That very evening, on a night out with a group of perfect strangers (bar one) I’d met at the ProBlogger event, I was presented with a perfect example of Chris’ words in action.
It was my first time walking down Melbourne’s Hardware Lane. Fleetingly I was back in Brussels, on that crazy pedestrian-only strip of mussel-spruiking restaurants called Petite rue des Bouchers.
Only this time, we were being offered free entrees or free drinks. Sounds enticing enough – but that’s what every restaurant was offering. As a complete stranger to the area, I still had nothing different to draw me to a particular restaurant.
As we progressed deeper into the narrow pocket of chaos, one particularly smooth spruiker, Daniel, offered free entrees AND free drinks. And not just soft drinks or dodgy house wine, but cocktails.
I paused. This was the most enticing offer of the evening, but I still wasn’t convinced. Apart from the fact I was immensely enjoying myself playing cat and mouse with the restaurants, ‘free’ on its own wasn’t persuasive enough. I subconsciously wanted something different.
Daniel noticed I wavered. And whether part of his spruiking bag of magic tricks or not, what he said next converted me on the spot.
He asked where I was from. When he found out I was from Sydney, he immediately softened, welcomed me to Melbourne, and then told me that every restaurant along the strip is excellent, and that no matter where I chose, I’d have a wonderful evening.
Not only that, he insisted we continue our lap of the strip to fully absorb the Hardware Lane experience, and that if we decided to eat elsewhere, he wished us all a fantastic night.
We were sold. We quickly finished the lap out of obligation, merely glancing at the other restaurants as we raced, in our silent and unanimous agreement, back to Daniel.
Why were we sold?
Because Daniel caught us by pleasant surprise by offering the unexpected. He wasn’t just being different by offering free entrees and drinks, rather than just one or the other as the other restaurants were doing, he offered us an advantage. Unlike our politicians, he praised his competitors – and he stopped selling. He took a genuine interest in our evening and it made us feel important.
And it didn’t cost him an extra cent.
So how can we be different?
We can be outrageous, Richard Branson-style, spending incredible amounts of cash and attractive invaluable publicity.
Or we can deliver the unexpected in everyday transactions. A free eBook when someone unsubscribes from your newsletter. A hand-written postcard thanking someone who’s left their first comment on your blog. A coffee on the house for absolutely no reason.
So thank you, Chris, for hijacking my thoughts. I’m forever furiously scrawling ideas in my Moleskine on how I can be different with an advantage. With any luck, I’ll be one step further away from my fear of mediocrity!
