How Do I Get Clear on My Point of Difference?
How do I get clear on my point of difference?
This is a really important question because when you are putting out your work, you have to be really clear with your audience about:
- What’s different about your approach?
- What’s different about your method?
- What’s different about the way you do what you do that gets results?
The problem is that the better you are at something, the harder it is to see why.
I’m a professional “watcher.” I learned that it is easier to notice what’s unique about how other people get results than it is to identify what is unique in yourself.
The first step in defining a compelling point of difference is to notice what you do differently that produces different results.
Once you notice what you do differently, you can share your unique approach as a system, model, or method for getting results.
I work with many experts to help them “download their brilliance.” Clients will come into our offices and we will spend a day identifying what makes their approach unique so that they can create unique intellectual property that can be marketed in their courses, coaching and consulting offers.
There are three things that I want to invite you to think about to reflect on your point of difference:
1) Your Method
What are the steps you go through from Point A to getting the result at the end (Point B)? Notice how you approach the work you do. How are your steps different than what most people do?
Write the steps down. Make notes about what is unique in your approach.
2) Your Movement
Is there a point of difference in how you take action to get results?
- How do you activate? Move into action?
- What kind of pace do you move in? Is your approach faster? More measured?
- How frequently?
- What’s your discipline? Is there a point of difference in consistency?
- What’s your rhythm or daily ritual?
Let’s take an example. Imagine you are a marketing expert and you teach people your method for creating engaging content. If they follow your method for creating content but only post once a week and you post 3x a day, your results will be different even though they are using your content creation method.
Method is one thing, the movement around the method impacts the results greatly. Click To Tweet3) Your Mindset
I’m willing to bet that you also have a different mindset around what you do. You wouldn’t be getting higher results if you didn’t.
Is there an idea or concept that you embrace that makes a big difference in your results?
The way you think and believe is just as important to share as your method.
Many experts only share their method in their courses and programs. Method only gets you so far.
Sharing your method, your movement, and your mindset will equip your clients for real success.
Those are three different lenses that you can think through so you can channel that inner watcher. Imagine yourself watching yourself doing what you do and notice with a fresh set of eyes what it is that you do differently.
I’d love for you to share in the comments one thing you think you do differently in your approach to getting the result?
I am really enjoying these episodes. While I am taking a few months off to ground, and reboot, I find these segments to be focused, cogent, and yet packed full with useful information and insights. Thank you!
Hello Olga! I love that you find these useful. Our goal in the show is to focus on actionable content. Thanks for tuning in and sharing 🙂
This episode really made me think! My major point of difference in training new caregivers, usually family, is that I ask a lot of questions and really listen to the answers. I make time to actually solve problems and not just provide answers that are rote, easy, uncreative. I rapidly address the most urgent and pressing issues of the caregiver; then the important issues, and there is a difference. Then I teach tips and tricks to help meet the stroke caregiver’s goals for the patient’s recovery. Above all, I believe everyone has hope! Everyone can get better! Caregivers as well as patients.
Hi I feel that my point of difference in being a children’s relaxation kids coach is that I feel by me really having empathy and compassion that can help their children to learn how to deal with emotional reactions.
I’ve experienced lots of childhood anxieties and feel I can relate with the child and jump into their point of understanding. I’m a mental projector, naturally absorbing projecting other people’s aura’s.This gives me an inner wisdom. I was born to absorb all that was around me through a heartfelt sensory way to internalise it all then offer that understanding and sound-boarding right it back to people that in my guidance. My life experience have given me several depths of compassion.
Jo (uk children’s coach just finding my way with my new business)
I think this is interesting. Certainly I have a method that rotates around a problem in cycles: I’ll be inquisitive,do my research, chuck my semi formed ideas into a pot, try out a hypothesis.. predetermine in my mind what the natural consequences would be for an idea (if you heat something up, stuff will get hot).. so I test an idea, look for the outcomes. I might get a new problem to solve from this (maybe the stuff didn’t get hot as I thought it would), and that’s fine, you build up knowledge around the problem and eventually find the pieces all fit when you hit on the best solution.
But I’d say the biggest challenge is when you’re in an environment where others come in from the side and want to interrupt your flow, change your approach towards a different solution, try to stop you investigating yourself and just try to use you as a resource for testing their hypotheses. They’re taking the ball away which is hard to manage and when the problems keep multiplying you’re never sure whose problem it was and which new problem you should work on and then you can even lose your sense of your job role. Sometimes you’re even taken off project 1 to work on project 2. This is the headache of this.
I have 6 grandchildren from t ages of 21 to 10. They are like sponges in their quest for knowledge. I always bring them up to my intellectual level by using 63 year’s experience to teach them life is there to live & enjoy.
I find i am immediately, when shown something trying to find a process and analyse a quicker and sometime more efficient way to achieve the target or method being taught usually from manuals,textbook ect and quite often the instructor or teacher isnt that accomplished anyway. Dont misunderstand me as there are highly qualified instructors and tutors ect but there is allways a better, more efficient way usually but just needs more analysis.