This podcast explores the importance of finding a strong differentiator for a business and provides a framework for uncovering one. It discusses the power of a differentiator through the success story of a bagel shop known for making the best bagels in New York City. The podcast also emphasizes the significance of being aggressively different from the competition and sticking to a differentiator despite others' suggestions to change direction constantly.
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Quick takeaways
A clear differentiator is crucial for the success of a business and requires discipline and sticking to it for it to show its true value.
Pop-Up Bagels differentiated themselves by providing piping hot bagels, highlighting the importance of aggressively differentiating and focusing on a specific customer segment.
Deep dives
The Power of a Clear Differentiator
A clear differentiator is crucial for the success of a business. Many entrepreneurs shy away from making this important decision due to the perceived permanence and discomfort involved. However, stepping out of the comfort zone and embracing the uncomfortable leads to unique and interesting opportunities in life. A differentiator acts as an organizing principle and helps make decisions fast. By choosing a differentiator that is aggressively diametrically opposed to the competition, it creates a moat and becomes eminently shareable. People are willing to overpay for a powerful differentiator that solves a specific problem and is significantly better than other options. Ultimately, a differentiator requires discipline and sticking to it, allowing time for it to show its true value.
The Story of Pop-Up Bagels
Pop-Up Bagels, a bagel shop in the suburbs of Connecticut, has become known for making the best bagels in New York City, a city renowned for its bagels. The founder, Adam Goldberg, identified the magic of a hot bagel and saw an opportunity to differentiate his business by ensuring that every bagel his shop sells is hot. The core differentiator became providing piping hot bagels, and every aspect of the business, from operational logistics to pricing and bagel quality, supported this differentiator. By focusing on a specific customer segment and aggressively differentiating from the competition, Pop-Up Bagels created a unique value proposition that resonates with customers and enables them to charge premium prices.
Finding Your Own Differentiator
Coming up with a differentiator for your own business requires careful consideration and creativity. The differentiator should be meaningfully, obviously, and uniquely different from competitors and sharply focused on addressing the needs of a specific customer segment. It should make people feel uncomfortable and skeptical while also demonstrating a clear value proposition that people are willing to overpay for. Timing and context play a crucial role in identifying a differentiator, as shifts in behavior or technological advancements can unlock new opportunities. Smushing together ideas from different industries and domains can result in innovative differentiators. Finally, it is important to have the discipline to stick with the chosen differentiator and resist the temptation to constantly change course.
Today, we'll help you find a differentiator powerful enough that it can support your business. We'll talk through what a differentiator actually allows you to do, five prompts to help you uncover and test one for your business, and Brian's favorite current differentiator - Popup Bagels.
00:00 Beehiiv 00:33 Differentiator intro 04:00 What do you hire a differentiator to do? 05:44 The Attention Pie 09:03 Smooth Jazz 09:28 Popup Bagels 16:30 Five Prompts for Your Differentiator
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