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Don't Describe a Giraffe to a Zookeeper

what makes your product or service unique, how to differentiate your service from competitors, how to describe your product or service

Anthony | August 16, 2022

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DIFFERENTIATING YOUR PRODUCTS OR SERVICES FROM SOMEONE ELSE 

Hi. Anthony Manly here from selfmanagedbusiness.com. Today I want to talk to you about something that’s probably a little unusual and I’m going to title it: Don’t describe a giraffe to a zookeeper.

You probably end to yourself, well, why would I not describe a giraffe to a zookeeper?

Well, it’s quite simple really, because a zookeeper already knows what a giraffe looks like.

So why would you just go through the run-of-the-mill things and just say, look, it’s got a long neck, it’s got spots, it’s got this, it’s got that?

What you need to describe to a zookeeper is what’s different between one giraffe to the next giraffe. 

It could be its personality, it could be what it eats, it could be because it only drinks water at certain times of the day.

But I think you get the idea that it doesn’t describe something to somebody that they already know.

Now, if you look at the ladder of awareness, people will come to your business and they will firstly, they’ll be unaware.

Your job is then to make their problem aware, solution aware, and then also make their product aware of your product or service that can solve their problem and then they become most aware.

And that’s the awareness ladder from being unaware, which is probably the most amount of people, to make their solution aware.

Now, there’s a lot of advertising out there that you’ll see when you walk around the place where people are talking about the features and the benefits of their specific product or service and there’s not much difference between any of them.

I mean, I go to the gym quite regularly and they talk about different pre-workouts and they go, well, this pre-workout has got X amount of caffeine and it’s going to keep you awake and it’s only $49 for 30 servings for a whole month.

And then the next person comes along, I’ve got 320 milligrams of caffeine for 20 milligrams more and it does this and it does that.

Well, hang on a minute. You know what? Not interested in that.

What I’m interested in is what does your product do for me that the other product doesn’t?

Just because it’s got 20 milligrams of caffeine more than the other product doesn’t mean it’s a better product.

What could be the differentiator?

It could be that, Hey, my product will deliver you this type of result.

Now, it’s just an adage that people would go through and understand and describe a product to somebody to make them buy it.

what makes your product or service unique, how to differentiate your service from competitors, how to describe your product or service

What you need to do is differentiate yourself by what’s different about your product or service compared to someone else’s product or service.

So the example I’ve just used, part of me about pre-workout, what you could say is these are the benefits that it gives me. Rather than giving them all the descriptions and all the information about the pre-workout, you can say, well, this is the benefit that it gives me.

It gives me a boost just before I go to the gym.

It gives me a muscle pump, it allows me to provide me more stamina towards the end of my workout.

It’s what’s important to you.

So in other words, I’m describing how it makes me feel as opposed to these are the ingredients inside of the product. If you take that kind of view, you’ll be very surprised at how easy it is to get someone to purchase your product or service.

Another thing that you could also do is when you go to the supermarket, you’ll notice that there are a lot of trashy magazines. Like you might see TV Week, you might see new ideas. These are the magazines here in Australia anyway.

And what you’ll notice is they’ve got these trashy headlines, but they attract you in and they not only talk about the different types of people around the world or what someone is experiencing, or the next person got married to this person and so on.

They’re talking about the difference between what’s going on between people in the world even in a gossip magazine.

However, if you take that line when it comes to selling your products and services, you won’t fall into the runner’s meal just like everybody else and you won’t be describing a giraffe to a zookeeper, so to speak.

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About the Author

Anthony

How would you like to attract more leads, convert these leads into paying clients and deliver more value to these clients? Join a team of like-minded entrepreneurs who are generating more money, delivering meaning and have more freedom to live the lifestyle they choose