NICHE Yourself

Sounds kind of perverse, doesn't it? But you have been doing it all your life, whether you realized it or not. You have been trying to differentiate yourself from the competition. If you were a second child, you very likely started laying claim to talents and styles that your older sibling didn't already own before you started talking.

As you got older, you vied for attention in your neighborhood, your school classroom, and on the baseball field. In the teens, you needed to stand out among the others of your sex in an effort to attract the best of the opposite sex. With all that training, you'd think we would all be doing a great job of niching ourselves in the business arena. But alas, it isn't always so.

Our first inclination seems to be to just sell it cheaper. And that can be a method of entree into a crowded field. I have used it myself. However, it is not generally a good strategy for the long term, unless like WalMart, you have also built in a very substantial difference in the cost of delivering your product/service.

Generally, it is better to offer superior products, service, or information, and let your client know that you price competitively, but that you can't swim with the bottom feeders and give them the service they need or demand.

I'll come back to this on Wednesday. It might be the most important thing you'll ever read in this place.