Breaking BizDev

The Art of Being Ignorable: 12 Ways to SUCK at Differentiation

• John Tyreman & Mark Wainwright • Season 1 • Episode 43

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Discover the art of being utterly indistinguishable from your competition.

In this episode, John and Mark dive into the art of blending in, unveiling the tongue-in-cheek strategies to completely lose your edge and suck at differentiation. Listeners will learn how to avoid standing out, ensuring a legacy of mediocrity. 

Join us for a humorous—yet insightful—look at what not to do, ensuring you grasp the full spectrum of effective (and ineffective) differentiation strategies.

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhwainwright/
Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johntyreman/

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John Tyreman:

Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Breaking Biz Dev. Today, we're diving into the art of being utterly indistinguishable from your competition. We're going to teach you how to be as generic as possible. And, um, we're going to show you how to blend in. This is going to be a fun one, Mark.

Mark Wainwright:

I'm already, I'm already laughing at, at this episode. so do we want people to take this seriously, John, or, you know, like, where, where are we with that? Right. I know there's some, some episodes, some podcasts out there that, you know, are, are sort of. Tongue in cheek and sarcastic at their core. I think generally you and I seek to be, you know, pretty much on the up and up and pretty serious about our, episodes, but, all right, this one is designed to be a little sarcastic, but hopefully in a, in a, in a useful way, and we have had a blast just creating it and also throwing around the various titles that you developed. we're not really sure exactly what this is going to be titled. Hopefully it's, catchy, but I know we've got more than one potential title to choose from. any of those other titles stick out to you, John?

John Tyreman:

I like how to blend in. 12 ways to suck at differentiation or the art of being utterly indistinguishable. Those are, those are two of the ones that stand out to me.

Mark Wainwright:

I love it. I love it. Yeah. The one that's become ignorable, 12 ways to suck at differentiation, that is so funny. So yeah, john and I have fun at making these titles and sometimes, they're a little boring, but today's, Not boring at all. So tons of fun, in our various titles. So yes, we are here, to talk about differentiation, in kind of an indirect, right, sort of backwards way, because both how you market as an expert in your professional services firms and actually how you sell, Be both, you know, powerful differentiators, not just the services you provide or the expertise that you have inside your four walls at your firm, but. Actually, how you do these things, how you market and how you sell can kind of pull you away from the pack.

John Tyreman:

Yeah, and we've got a baker's dozen of examples on how you can suck at differentiation. plenty of firms that do it, you know, we want you to be part of the group, part of the herd mentality. If everyone just does the same thing, then, you know, we'll all become indistinguishable. Well,

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah. And, and John, we came up with, a good number more than this. So, there are nearly endless ways to, really suck at differentiation. So let's, let's be kind and just highlight. A handful.

John Tyreman:

The first one on my list, Mark is, creativity is just overrated. You know, I think firms need to standardize everything that they do. They don't need to try new things. They don't need to step outside of their comfort zone. Creativity is overrated and everything should be black and white.

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah, yeah. Particularly in expert firms where really there's only one way to do something. and it's doing it the right way because all the other ways are the wrong ways and it's really not even worth sort of exploring any of those different areas. So keep doing what you're doing. and yeah, that's going to work out for you again and again

John Tyreman:

mean, you're an expert, you know, everything, right?

Mark Wainwright:

Exactly.

John Tyreman:

What, what's the first one on your list, Mark?

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah. The first one on my list is just, just ignore client feedback. Right. So, so you know what you're like, we said, you've got this thing figured out. You are the expert. So anytime a client throws some feedback your way, I'm assuming it's, it's unsolicited because you probably wouldn't solicit or, you know, be open to their feedback in any way. So when they throw some feedback your way, just file that in the circular file. and you know, what's best. So just keep moving on.

John Tyreman:

I mean, who needs the voice of the customer? Right?

Mark Wainwright:

the right?

John Tyreman:

mean, have no idea what challenges they're faced with.

Mark Wainwright:

exactly, exactly. All right. That was two. There you go. Good. John, you have a third.

John Tyreman:

right, number three, just become a generalist. I mean, specialization just narrows your total addressable market, right? And so, I mean, if you have a wider total addressable market, you're able to sell more services. Right? I mean, that's, that's a path to revenue.

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah. Yeah. Be everything to everyone. Absolutely. That's a,

John Tyreman:

the ocean. Do it, yeah, I mean,

Mark Wainwright:

boil the

John Tyreman:

fire.

Mark Wainwright:

There it is. Good. So in short, right, right. The third one, uh, your, the third one on our list was boil the ocean. Good, smart. All right. Number four on our list. Share how excited you

John Tyreman:

Oh yeah, you like this one.

Mark Wainwright:

channel possible. Right. You and I laughed about this, John. I know. And I call these out. I, I wrote a blog post a long time ago, that was lovingly kind of named after the pointer sisters. And, you're old enough, John, I.

John Tyreman:

I'm so excited!

Mark Wainwright:

exactly, exactly right. I call those hashtag pointer sisters posts because again and again and again, we see on social media and every other channel possible people just coming out in the first three words on their post. I'm so excited, or we're so excited, right? So that's a, that's a way,

John Tyreman:

to be

Mark Wainwright:

right? That's a way to destroy differentiation just by coming up, you know, those three words right off the bat where we're so excited.

John Tyreman:

Alright, so that was, what was That number four,

Mark Wainwright:

That was number four,

John Tyreman:

Alright. So we're on number five then, and uh, this next one is, If you want to blend in under invest in marketing, after all, it's an operating expenditure, it's not an investment. It's an expense and you need to minimize your business development expense. That's the only way you're going to grow

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah, that budget line item should have a nice big target on it every single year when, yeah, and just, just hack away at it because in the short term, right, the work that you do in marketing, if it doesn't pay off tomorrow, then, you know, just, just dump it, you know, we're not going to be patient.

John Tyreman:

Oh yeah. I mean, you have to calculate ROI on, is it going to make a return within 30 days, right? 90 days has to be 90 days maximum.

Mark Wainwright:

maximum. Yeah. None of this long term, none of this long term stuff. So great. No marketing leads to, uh, No differentiation and you're just blending in with the pack. Good,

John Tyreman:

All right. That was number five. What's number

Mark Wainwright:

was number five. All right. Number six. All right. And this shifts to some kind of pipeline stuff, kind of sales stuff. Let any Tom, Dick or Harry into your pipeline.

John Tyreman:

The great escape. Love it.

Mark Wainwright:

Just, open it up. Like throw the doors open. Like it's a, you know, it's a red tag sale, fire sale in the pipeline. Just everybody jump in, right? We don't care who you are. We don't care what you need. We don't care what you're willing or not willing to pay. Come on in. Because when we look at our sales pipeline, John, it's just all about, you know, just how many opportunities are in there and

John Tyreman:

We want more.

Mark Wainwright:

We want more, just, just throw them, just

John Tyreman:

Well, it's a numbers game, right? The more you put into your funnel, the more deals and opportunities that are going to rise. I mean, it just makes common sense.

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why, why be concerned about the quality of your pipeline? Let's just stay focused on the quantity.

John Tyreman:

Yep. Shove it through, shove it through

Mark Wainwright:

You're listening to breaking biz dev

John Tyreman:

the podcast that beats up, breaks down, and redefines business development for the professional services firms of tomorrow. Your hosts are John Tyerman, founder of Red Cedar Marketing, the podcast marketing company for experts and professional services firms,

Mark Wainwright:

And Mark Wainwright, principal consultant and founder of Wainwright Insight, the fractional sales manager and sales consultant to professional services firms.

John Tyreman:

If you find this podcast helpful, please help us by following the show and leaving a review on Apple podcasts

Mark Wainwright:

and now back to the show. All right. So we're up to number seven, I

John Tyreman:

number seven. And this is a, this is a favorite of mine. Follow the Sally principle. And that stands for same as last year. You don't want to change at all. If it worked last year, it'll work this year and you, you will see very stagnant results, which is the, which is the goal.

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah. I'm, I'm seeing some tight connections here, to your very first, recommendation, which was, you know, don't be creative. So I'm, I'm, I'm seeing a, I'm seeing a good, a good connection here.

John Tyreman:

Bland is the name of the game.

Mark Wainwright:

yep. Yep. Just copy it and do it again. Fantastic. Great recommendation. People are going to take that one to the bank.

John Tyreman:

Yeah. All right. What's what's number eight. We're

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah. Number

John Tyreman:

We're going to have to slow down a little bit.

Mark Wainwright:

yeah, I know we're, we're, we're kind of, we're kind of ripping, ripping through these. Number eight is, you know, when you do have, you know, an opportunity to go talk to your client, you know, when you have that meeting set up, just show them the deck,

John Tyreman:

Don't ask

Mark Wainwright:

bust open, bust out that 80, 80 page, 80 slide deck and just. Just let her rip,

John Tyreman:

The more slides, the better, quite honestly.

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah. The more slides, the more slides, the better. And, you know, that deck is obviously going to cover, you know, your 40 services bullet pointed on, multiple slides or maybe crammed onto one in like eight point font. And then you're just going to hammer them over the head with your resumes and your expertise, because no other expert firms do that.

John Tyreman:

You know, if you get it down to under a hundred pages and, you know, you're saving on paper, right. You know, saving those extra 20 pages.

Mark Wainwright:

smart, smart. So just, just show them, show up, show them the deck, pitch the heck out of them and overwhelm them with your stuff.

John Tyreman:

Because if you overwhelm them with information that positions you as an expert, right.

Mark Wainwright:

Right.

John Tyreman:

The more information, quantity. Hey, there's a theme. I'm seeing quantity in the pipeline, quantity in your proposals.

Mark Wainwright:

Exactly.

John Tyreman:

All right. So what are we on? Number nine. All right. I like this one. This is create an echo chamber. You need to believe only what you hear within the four walls of your firm. Don't go outside. Don't talk to other people in the industry. Diversity of thought just brings change and change is a drag, right? So create an echo chamber and just hang out there.

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah. I, I've, I have found that, just about all professional services firms do a really good job of these, sort of inwardly focused planning exercises. and, Come next year when they look at the results or what's come of all of that. there's not a lot to speak of, but heck, they spent so many days doing this. I mean, there were post it notes and the big whiteboard sheets all over that room. they took pictures of everything and shared them with the, the firm. And it, seemed like it was a really, really strong effort. So, they're probably just going to end up doing it again next year. So that's a, that's definitely a way to pull yourself away from the pack.

John Tyreman:

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, challenging the status quo just, you know, diverts everyone away. If you question things, then people have to stop and they have to think. it requires just too much, it's a, it's a headache. Thinking is a headache. And, you know, if everyone agrees with each other, then everyone's happy. Number

Mark Wainwright:

All right. So I think we're up to number 10 now, number 10. Always be closing.

John Tyreman:

Oh yeah, gotta win the deal, right?

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah, that's a right. That, that was, that was pulled from Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, you know, that among endless other sort of quotes and snippets and really fantastic advice that we've all gleaned from, all of those, shows or films that really kind of highlight and glorify the What it means and what it looks like to be a really good salesperson be closing Should be a powerful motivator and a really strong way to kind of pull yourself away from from others out there who are you know, just hammering their clients for the contract Yeah,

John Tyreman:

Well, if you're going up against a competitor who's asking questions and taking their time and having methodical conversations, then it just gives you an opportunity to close the deal faster. Right? I mean, you know, what we're trying to do is we are trying to minimize days in pipeline. That's the name of the game.

Mark Wainwright:

just just just close it just close it if they have questions if they want to have additional conversations, etc Just close the deal.

John Tyreman:

It will, if they have questions, you need to have the answers and you need to tell them the answer.

Mark Wainwright:

Well, it's the deck, right?

John Tyreman:

refer to the deck, section four.

Mark Wainwright:

that was slide 86. Don't you remember? I'll send it to you again.

John Tyreman:

All right. So always be closing. That's, that's number 10. Okay. Now 11, this is where you just build in secret. Okay, you're building your business in secret because you you want to avoid networking. I mean who needs connections anyway, right? I mean networking just gives the the market an opportunity to hear your ideas and hear what you're building No, no, no, you got to keep that secret closed off and it needs to be perfect before you launch whatever that idea is

Mark Wainwright:

don't test.

John Tyreman:

No. Oh God, test?

Mark Wainwright:

No, don't

John Tyreman:

What are we thinking?

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah. Don't, um,

John Tyreman:

it in secret, by yourself, don't tell anybody about it. Your business, your marketing campaigns, no one.

Mark Wainwright:

Build in secret. That is great. Good, strong, strong recommendation. All right. So the last one that. I have on my list, which is really great approach, you know, and weekend and week out, I, I find people really employing this one, which is really just go ahead and email over the PDF proposal. And they'll definitely get right back to you.

John Tyreman:

Oh, immediately next

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah, just send it just send it right over to them. There are other ways to deliver that information to have a conversation about that information, but really in order to, you know, just kind of check the checkbox. My job is done here. I'm just going to email over the pdf proposal and, the contract is yeah, yeah. Obviously forthcoming, you know, maybe there's a little bit of a delay, maybe they don't get back to you for 6 or 8 weeks or something like that. But, you know, eventually everything's going to work out fine and really the best way to just keep things moving. It's just to just send that proposal over.

John Tyreman:

Right. Cause you've got all those other Tom Dicks and Harry's in your pipeline. You got to send more PDF proposals too. So come on volume quantity. Let's get them out. Pump out

Mark Wainwright:

pipeline. Yeah. I mean, your pipeline is not really there to, be walking you towards really great contracts. It's just, it's just a proposal machine crank them out.

John Tyreman:

Right? Cause you know, volume equals growth

Mark Wainwright:

Yes. There it is.

John Tyreman:

because we want to blend in. We don't want to stand out at all. We want to make sure that we are exactly like all of the other firms who have RFP machines all right. So we promised 12 and we have a baker's dozen. I've got one more.

Mark Wainwright:

fantastic. Good. A bonus.

John Tyreman:

A bonus one. You stopped by the bakery. We're going to get you what you need. this last way that we have to suck at differentiation. Number 13 is to maintain a static website. You don't want it to evolve. You don't need it to be optimized. If clients are looking for you, they're going to find you right. maybe.

Mark Wainwright:

Needles in haystacks. Absolutely.

John Tyreman:

If they want it enough, they'll find it.

Mark Wainwright:

yeah, they'll, they'll dig. I mean, they're willing to go to the, what the 13th search results page on Google. They'll find

John Tyreman:

It's a part of the qualification process.

Mark Wainwright:

They can,

John Tyreman:

gotta make them dig for it.

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah. Yeah. Right. They, they find your website and maybe they even send you an email and you get back to them. You say, wow.

John Tyreman:

Congratulations. You've made it this far. You must really want our services.

Mark Wainwright:

Oh, that's, that is, that is fantastic. So a baker's dozen, 12 plus one, 13 fantastic ways to blend in to suck at differentiation. We packaged it up nicely, John. I think there might be a few we missed, but I think all in all, that's a pretty good summary on how someone can really kind of just. Destroy, any differentiation or any sort of, you know, unique positioning or anything like that.

John Tyreman:

Why be unique when you can emulate your competition?

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah,

John Tyreman:

Because it's safer to do that than to stand out and to put yourself out there and to turn heads. You don't want to capture attention at all. You just want to be like every other apple in the cart.

Mark Wainwright:

every other one. Right. So there we are. there's our 12 plus 1, our baker's dozen. I'm sure others have more. We would love to hear from any and all of you out there about other ways. To destroy any, differentiation, that your firm can, achieve through maybe thinking about some of these things a little differently.

John Tyreman:

Yeah, and remember the goal is not to shine, but to blend. And you need to be, your firm's legacy needs to be one of mediocrity. We don't want a lasting impression. We just want to blend right into just be one other brick in the walls back here.

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Good. All right, John, I think we hashed that one out pretty clearly.

John Tyreman:

I think so.

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah, we tried our best.

John Tyreman:

Hopefully everybody out there knows that we are absolutely kidding about this. And most of our predispositions is the complete opposite of everything that we just talked about.

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah. The, the, you know, sometimes the way to really understand something is to maybe look at it from a slightly different perspective. And I'd say this is a different perspective.

John Tyreman:

Exactly. Well, Mark, I enjoyed this. if you're listening to this, like Mark said, if you think of other, ways to suck at differentiations, shoot us a note. We'd love to hear from you.

Mark Wainwright:

Yeah. We would, we would love to hear about it better yet. We'd love to see it,

John Tyreman:

Oh, yeah. Examples. Yeah. Show us

Mark Wainwright:

yeah. Just send us, send us great examples of, of how your firm has.

John Tyreman:

or how others

Mark Wainwright:

this or, or, or right. others maybe other, firms have just, you know, disappeared into the background. Yeah, just, we'd love to see it.

John Tyreman:

yeah. We need some more case examples of this'cause we, we need some more evidence to support our Baker's Dozen here.

Mark Wainwright:

We do. We do. All right, John, this is, this has been fun until next time.

John Tyreman:

Until next time.

People on this episode

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John Tyreman, Founder & CEO, Red Cedar Marketing

Co-host
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Mark Wainwright, Principal Consultant and Founder, Wainwright Insight

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