After a whirlwind week of five speeches – from Capital One’s Envision Summit in Richmond to keynoting at Disney Boardwalk in Orlando – one question stuck with me. A printing company owner stood up in a room full of business owners and asked something brutally honest: “What if our secret sauce is losing us money?” She explained that their biggest differentiator was custom work no other printer would do, requiring specialized equipment. It made them famous but unprofitable. Later, at a roundtable with a major oil company, their purchasing manager stopped her mid-pitch: “Stop telling me you’re a printer. Just tell me your special sauce – what problem do you solve?” She defaulted to that money-losing differentiator because it was the only one she knew.

Why Most “Differentiators” Aren’t

After spending 18 years in corporate marketing before founding The Repositioning Expert, I can tell you that years of service, quality, price, great teams, and amazing customer service are NOT differentiators – everyone claims them. Real differentiation is hard because most businesses weren’t trained by major packaged goods companies (like I was at Pepsi) on how to systematically find market gaps. Here’s the reality: 86% of buyers can’t tell the difference between two suppliers anyway. This is why commoditized industries – staffing, IT, marketing agencies, realtors, investment advisors – struggle to unseat incumbents. Consider how bottled water sells for $6-10, or even $62 in Trump Hotel’s crystallized bottles, when everyone has free tap water. That’s differentiation driving margin.

The Strategic Process for Finding Your Real Differentiator

The solution starts with what I call the “blue sky exercise” – mapping every industry you could help and every problem you could solve. Remember, you don’t sell printing or widgets or services – you solve problems. Even Pepsi solved belonging, not just thirst, which is why their campaigns still work after a hundred years. Score each option on three criteria: fit (your background, skills, experience), revenue potential (which industries pay most), and access (do you know decision-makers or can you reach them at their gatherings?). Then validate with actual humans in those markets – garbage in, garbage out applies here. Ask the right questions systematically or you won’t identify real market gaps.

Turning a Dud Differentiator Into Strategy

Once you’ve validated your positioning, create content everywhere your buyers are. With 70% of the buying journey completed before millennials contact sales reps, and 7-12 touches needed to convert, you need newsletters, articles, live videos, and keynotes addressing their pain. When prospects line up to talk to me, they’ve binged my content first. But what about that money-losing differentiator? Use it as a loss leader or door opener with clear parameters – cap the price, time-limit the offer, or negotiate year-two purchases of profitable services upfront. Alternatively, change the application: Would a different industry pay more? Could the same capability solve a more expensive problem in another department? The key is strategic repositioning, not throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping your only differentiator magically becomes profitable.

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