How to Identify Your Strategic Market Focus (in other words your Secret Sauce)

What is your strategic market focus?

Why do customers buy from you? What is your secret sauce that no one else delivers? Your positioning strategy needs to be thought out and executed with the same energy and focus.

Why do customers choose you?

If you were to back up a bit, you would discover that when asked, there is a very clear reason your customers buy from you. A reason, or a secret sauce, that you deliver… that no one else can. It may be that you have the highest quality? Or, perhaps you are the most innovative? Or… you deliver the highest level of efficiency? Could it be that you have the very best customer service? There is a reason that customers choose you over your competitors.

In the Venn Diagram below, you can see a model that represents the total market, your competitors and you.

When we break it down, you can see:

1. There is an area where your competitor is able to deliver an advantage that you cannot. It is their ‘Why.’
2. There is this weird little area that delivers absolutely no value to the marketplace; however, we see competitors building an offering, so we think we need to do it too.
3. Then there is this tiny little area you and your competitors offer a like-for-like service or product to the market and… the market beats everyone up over price.
4. Finally, there is a magical place – your secret sauce – that customers see value from you and no one else can, or does, deliver as well as you do. This is your greatness.

Robert Murray is a Vancouver, BC-based Business Strategy Consultant, #1 Best Selling Author, International Keynote Speaker, and TEC Top Speaker of the Year for 2018. For further advice, insight and inspiration on how to unlock your inner leader, follow Robert on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

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