Seth’s Blog: Your competitive advantage.
Some of the ways you might build or maintain a competitive advantage:
- Access to hard-to-replicate Talent
- Hard-earned skills
- Higher productivity due to insight or organization allowing you to be cheaper
- Low cost of living for you and your staff allowing you to be cheaper
- Protected or secret technology or trade secrets
- Existing relationships (switching costs working in your favor)
- Virally organized product and organization
- Large network of users already and a network effect to support you
- Focus on speed
- Monopoly power and the willingness to use it
- Unique story that resonates with the worldview of your target audience
- Shelf space due to incumbency
- Large media budget
- Insight into worldview of prospects–making what they care about
- Emotional intelligence of your salesforce or customer service people
- Access to capital and willingness to lose money to build share
- Connection to community
Not on this list, at least not prominently, are “we are #1!”, “we are better!” and “we try harder.” Cheerleading skills are not a competitive advantage.
Remember..If I don’t know about you, you don’t exist.