A Key Secret To Achieve Success - Part 2

April 22, 2009
Interview with Scott McKain, author of Collapse of Distinction: Stand out and move up while your competition fails

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Mike Carruthers:
You've got to be different in order to stand out but what does that really mean?

Scott McKain:
If I slap every customer in the face I'm different but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to gain traction in the marketplace. The highest level of all this is distinction where you are in a category of one, a class by yourself.

Scott McKain, author of the book Collapse of Distinction, says there is a formula for distinction that any company or individual can follow.

Step number one is clarity. Most organizations cannot clearly define who they are and what they stand for. As Starbucks started adding coffee machines to buy and mugs and music and everything else they found their core customer base eroding. Second step is creativity. Every organization that is distinctive finds something different. Enterprise Rental Car rents the same cars as Hertz and Avis and National but the difference we all know is they pick you up.

Step three is the way you communicate.

Visionary organizations and top professionals communicate in terms of stories, not in terms of data. And how you create a narrative is vitally important. The fourth step is a customer experience focus.

And the perfect illustration is Norm on the TV show Cheers.
 

The beer would have been the same at any bar in Boston but Norm always went back to Cheers because there was an experience that he could get at Cheers that he couldn't duplicate anyplace else. What we have to create as individual professionals or as organizations is that feeling that Norm got where there was a compelling reason to go back and continue to spend his money.

To hear part 1 of A Key To Achieve Success click here.