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Differentiating Yourself in Business

Boldness is not a quality we see in many businesses today. But boldness is exactly what’s needed if you want to stand out. For some reason, in their marketing and operations, most entrepreneurs always aim for the middle. It’s like they’re afraid to stand out, to leave the comfort and safety of the herd.

By Tony Wanless /

What can businesses learn from the peanut butter cup? A lot, it turns out.

Boldness is not a quality we see in many businesses today. But boldness is exactly what’s needed if you want to stand out.

For some reason, in their marketing and operations, most entrepreneurs always aim for the middle. It’s like they’re afraid to stand out, to leave the comfort and safety of the herd.

Perhaps it’s because they’re still new and still feeling their way in the entrepreneurial firmament; perhaps it’s because they’re not quite sure what their value to customers is. Maybe it’s a mass case of tall poppy syndrome.

As a result, most businesses seem the same as all their competitors. They may have adopted some angle that differentiates them slightly, but they aren’t very different in their marketing.

A friend from Victoria – that’s friend, by the way, not affiliate – Andrea Lee, super coach and purveyor of the Wealthy Thought Leader (WTL) program, has a simple operational lesson for all those who huddle in the middle of the pack.

 
Lee, who’s holding her second annual live and simulcast WTL event in Vancouver in May, suggests one way to stand out amid the hubbub of the group – innovate by BOP-ing. 
 
This, she says, means finding your own “bold, outrageous and provocative” positioning for your business. The world of business is noisy today, she explains, and you need to BOP to be heard. 
 
However, excavating your BOP position isn’t that easy. That’s where the innovation comes in. Lee suggests the peanut butter cup method – the innovative combination of peanut butter and chocolate into a tasty treat. 
 
Previously, peanut butter was peanut butter, generally spread on sandwiches. But one day, some innovator decided to see what it would taste like if combined with chocolate. Whammo, a new popular treat – the peanut butter cup – was born. 
 
Similarly, says Lee, you should write down your core offering – that’s your peanut butter. Then, for the chocolate you brainstorm what you can add to BOP it. Look to media as one method – i.e. maybe you should use a medium that others don’t usually use. Maybe you should compose a new message around your offering – something no one else says. 
 
But the best method (to me, at least) is mystery – the searching for something unrelated in your past that adds a different dimension and puts a different spin on what you do. For example, maybe you were a martial arts enthusiast at one time, so you could call yourself the Ninja something or other to convey discipline and other qualities. 
 

I know, Ninja anything is a cliche: That’s why I chose it. Somebody has already done it.

But you get the idea.

Want to stand out from the crowd? Start BOP-ing.