Reviewed by Will Phillips

Growth in Choice
One of the obvious changes which has occurred in our world is the growth in choice. Detroit used to produce 140 different models of cars. Now, 260 are available. In the 70’s, there were four different kinds of milk in the grocery store. Now, there are 19. Many of you know that there used to be only a half a dozen TV channels, while thousands of households now have 500 or more. To make it even more personal, there used to be one type of contact lens. Now, 36. In other words, as we look around us, there are more and more and more choices for every consumer to make.

Choice Drive Differentiation
It is this growth in choice that drives the need for your organization to be different than others. If there are 19 different types of contact lenses, why would anyone buy yours? The simple answer is that they would buy them because yours are different in some way. The process of differentiating is the process of making your presentation to your market different than that of your competitor down the street. In fact, one of the most critical issues for every non-profit organization is learning how to manage in a competitive environment. Just imagine what it would be like if there were absolutely no competition for your constituent’s time or money.

Every single client, which numbers in the thousands, that I have worked with has good products and good services. They do, in fact, meet real needs that people have. Their challenge in doing business well is competition. In other words, other people are offering similar products and services which meet the same needs. Some with an identical product, some with a very different kind of product, but it still meets the same basic need.

Differentiation Manages the Competition
It’s always easier to manage what you can see in front of you and what you have more control over, than those things which are not as visible, and particularly the ones over which you have less control. Most of us have given up on managing the weather. But, too many organizations have given up on managing the competition. Or, managing in light of the competition. They turn themselves internally and focus on how they can do something inside as opposed to what they can do externally to differentiate themselves in the constituent’s eyes.

Unique Selling Proposition
The very simplest way that you can do this is to go back to some of the wisdom that was created in the 60’s when Rosser Reeves wrote a book called Reality in Advertising. He said it was critical for every business to have a unique selling proposition, or USP. He defined this in three steps:

1. Every time you contact a consumer (or constituent) you must make a proposition. It can’t be just words. It can’t be just puffery. It can’t be just show and tell. A proposition says: buy this and you will receive this benefit.

2. The proposition must be one that the competition cannot or does not offer.

3. The proposition must be of sufficient power that it can move people to action.

Recently, Jack Trout has written another one of his wonderful books called Differentiate or Die. He makes an extraordinarily strong case for devoting the time, effort, and creativity to formulating your organization’s unique selling proposition. Do this well and you will sell easily. Do this poorly and you will have to sell very hard.

What Does Not Work
The book is worth while and deserves study and reading by your core marketing and creative leadership team. Jack Trout devotes four chapters to four different ways that do not differentiate you competitively. One that you should know about is that price never differentiates. Nor does a broad line of products or services that leave you unfocused. He also points out that fluffy creativity will not work. And, most interestingly, both quality and customer orientation are rarely differentiating ideas. I would suggest that one person on your team become an expert in each one of these chapters so that as you begin the process of differentiating, you can call on that person to point out when you’ve trespassed into one of these areas that rarely works.

Generic Ways to Differentiate
There are nine other chapters, 10 through 18 which point out basic generic ways of differentiating that have worked time and again. I encourage you to assign two people to each of these chapters. These pairs should read and discuss their chapter(s) and become experts so that they can begin thinking of how to apply this particular type of generic differentiation to your organization.

Growth Dilutes Differentiation
The final part of the book focuses on how growth can dilute differentiation so that what once was a unique selling proposition has lost its power because it is diluted with new products, services and programs. In addition, Trout points out that in order to differentiate, you are frequently required to sacrifice. Thus, an organization that is doing marginally well in one area and now, in order to improve business, expands into a new type of product or service, and in a few years has three or four or five distinct products or services, each offered in a somewhat different market, has so blurred and diluted its unique selling proposition that it can do well in none of the markets. The solution, of course, is to pick one product or service and manage it rigorously to bring it into full flower. If it cannot grow, it should probably die. This is the hard part and the sacrifice. Only after you have grown one well is it time to start a separate product/service line.

Differentiate or Disappear
In closing, I’d like to remind every business, whether it’s a for-profit corporation or a non-profit, you all have to deal with customers. The failure to be unique will let you disappear.

In the museum world, in the last few years, by different reports, we have seen contributions to non-profits accelerate some 30% and yet we find in the museum world that this acceleration has not occurred. My contention is that you are insufficiently differentiated and that you are slowly disappearing.