Align, Differentiate, Win: How to Stand Out in a Competitive Market

How do you compete in a world where everyone claims to give better service? In this revisited episode of C-Suite Sidekick, Summer Poletti dives into why "better service" is no longer a differentiator—and what you can do instead.

Learn how to uncover your true differentiators by understanding your clients' biggest challenges, leveraging research, and aligning your internal strategies with buyer preferences. Whether you’re battling against industry giants or refining your unique value proposition, this episode offers actionable insights to help you stand out.

With fresh reflections for 2025, Summer explores how alignment—between teams and buyer expectations—is the ultimate secret weapon in today’s competitive market. Tune in to discover how to build a sales strategy that resonates with clients, retains their loyalty, and avoids the dreaded race to the bottom.

Companion content:

• 6 Things Future-Focused Business Owners Will Master in 2025 
• Protect Your Clients from Poaching 

Show notes:

• Connect with Summer on LinkedIn
• Visit Rise of Us for more information about Summer's services
• Episode recorded and edited using Descript
• Repurposed content, such as this description created using CastMagic

Transcript

0:00

Hello, and welcome back to C-suite sidekick. I'm your host summer polity. And today we are revisiting a hidden gem from 2024 with some fresh insights. As we look forward to what 2025 looks like. But first, let me ask you something. If you have a dollar for every time someone answered, we give better service to the question. What sets you apart? Ours would you have for me? That answer came up so often it could fund a holiday bonus. But here's the thing better service. Isn't a differentiator. Not anymore. At least. It's a baseline expectation. If you're telling prospects and customers that your service is better than the competition. They're probably running an internal dialogue. That sounds like. Well, that's what the other guy said or okay. But. This episode came from countless conversations with business leaders who thought service alone would set them apart. Or they asked the question. How do you set yourself apart? From your bigger competition. It's a must listen, because in today's market, you can't rely on something so vague. To win new business or retain the clients that you worked so hard to acquire. So let's relisten. And stick around until the end where I will offer my fresh perspectives My experience is largely in financial services and SAS, both highly competitive. And with a couple of big box competitors who seem to be looming in every conversation. So, how do you compete? This is at the core of everything I do. Helping David slay Goliath. I can't give you one magic pill in a podcast episode, but I can tell you where you should start. And that is differentiation. What sets you apart from your competitors? If it's something like good or better service, congratulations, today's clients expect a high degree of customer service. I also have some bad news for you. Just about everyone cites service as their differentiator. Let me tell my aha moment. I was at an association conference, a gathering of independent operators. And the keynote speaker asked the planning committee to give some background. What do you do? And who's your biggest competitor to help him? We relatable details into his speech. Someone spoke up and summarized. I own an independent payroll service bureau and ADP is my biggest competitor. They may be able to undercut me on price, but they can't touch me on service. And then a room full of payroll service bureau owners, all smiled and nodded their heads enthusiastically. I tell you though, I wasn't enthusiastic or smiling. I was gagged and pretty sure my eyes popped out of my head a little bit. My marketing background told me that this was a huge problem. If everyone gives better service, but it's not a differentiator anymore in the eyes of your buyers. If all options seem the same in the eyes of the buyer, if they're being told by every sales person that. Buy from me because. We get better service. Have you ever wondered how the buyer is supposed to figure out whose services best? I'll tell you how they choose on the one thing that they can compare. And they choose the lowest price every time. I don't imagine you want to win a race to the bottom, right? Do you feel also like you've been answering this question for years? Are you sick of it coming up? I can tell you that back in my corporate career, I was sick of answering that question all the time. Does it ever frustrate you when someone can't see the difference between the service offered by an independent business versus a large, maybe even a publicly traded one. Yeah. If you're frustrated, you deserve to be, I would be too. So let's talk about ways. That you can differentiate your offering and with business from clients who value, what you provide. If you're familiar with my work, this shouldn't come as a surprise. We're going to start with. Your clients. Pull your client base clients who have been with you a long time, new clients. Clients you love to work with. It's pretty simple. Ask them why they choose you. And ask them what they like best about your service. And you're going to want to use words like specifically, what specifically do you like about the service? Because then you're going to drill down to some stuff that you can really use. You will find some common themes. And if the answer is, seem all over the place. Remove client names and then upload the comments into something like chat GBT and ask it to act as your marketing manager, analyze the data and summarize the common reasons. And also provide you some insights. we did this recently with modify clients and we found something surprising. The clients liked the personalized service that they received. And we got something unexpected. That client's enjoyed the structure around their compliance. There were other reasons clients cave, but these were the most common. So these are now our differentiators. And I hate to tell you we're not done yet because personalized service, what does that even mean? Is it really all that different from good or better service and providing structure and keeping clients compliant? Yeah. Most providers of business services would say something similar. So we're going to have to dig deeper and figure out what that means. Again, from the perspective of the client. So if clients like your personalized service, And that's why they choose you over your competitor. You're going to have to look at how you provide service versus how your competitor does. What's their team structure. What's yours. How do each of you handle service calls? What are clients saying? Here's another area where an AI model can be very helpful. I prefer perplexity for this kind of research. It gives good details. It's very easy to find it's source material so that you can do deeper reading and cross check. If you want. Chat GPT also works well. I asked the model to act as a research assistant and find customer feedback on the service of your competitor. You could do this yourself, but AI will do it in mere minutes. Combing chatboards Reddit review sites. You name it. These are generally of course complaints from unhappy customers. So it's not a full reflection of what your competitor does. I mean, they're an industry giant for a reason. They probably don't suck all the time. Right. However, these are the clients who are ripe for choosing you over them. So it's good to read their concerns. Compare these comments to what your best clients say about you. And you might find details around turnaround time for service requests waiting on hold or everything works fine until you need help. Help is hard to find it's difficult to. Escalate to a manager. You also might find that your competitor doesn't provide dedicated account managers. Clients might have to call into an 800 number and talk to a different person every time. That call support might even be handled by agents in another country who might not be knowledgeable on the nuances of compliance-based businesses in America. And every time the client calls, they have to tell the agent their entire story. Years. There's a frustrated because they have to spend or waste their precious time, or they're upset that the answers or advice aren't always relevant to their business or their problem. Is any of this starting to sound familiar? Bottom line, find out why something matters to your buyers. Surface level problems. Like I don't like the service. That's never going to win people over to make a business change. And then where this is going, is that your marketing content and sales questions now need to be centered around those reasons? The differentiators from the perspective of your clients and what your solution can help them address their business challenges better than your competition. We don't have time for this today, but on a future episode, I'll dive into how your sellers can leverage this research to uncover whether someone experiences these business challenges and whether they care enough about it to make a change. That's a big one right there. They might be annoyed, but annoyance again, isn't usually enough to take on another project. And this is how you leverage differentiators to win business in a competitive market. If you're like most business owners I've talked to, it's a competitive market and there's always a larger company looming around it. Every conversation. You give great service to your clients. And unfortunately that's not enough. Unless you're okay. Competing on price for every deal. So here's your quick takeaway, pull your clients and ask them why they like you conduct research to find details on how you perform these tasks differently than your competitors. And then center your marketing content and sales conversations around those reasons. Which pitcher you more likely to respond to? I worked for X company and I'd love to tell you more about what we do or our clients tell us that they like that they can call and talk to the same person each time they need help. The difference, right? well, there you have it. When I revisit this episode, now I realize how much this idea ties directly to the alignment I've been talking about so much. Internal teams being out of sync with each other sales strategies being out of sync with buyer preferences. As I look forward to 2025, I'm focusing increasingly on alignment so much, so that it's my own buzzword now. But really what I mean is. For a small business to navigate and compete against its larger competitors. Your internal teams need to be in sync with each other. You can't afford to be spending resources, spinning your wheels. And having people operate. Unknowingly. In contrast to each other strategies. And what I also mean is that. Your sales strategies, your customer success strategies, your customer service strategies need to be in sync and delivering what your buyers need. So your outbound, your marketing, your sales needs to be in alignment with buyer preferences. And one of the best ways to do that. Is to know your ideal client profile, know the problems that you can uniquely solve. And also figure out your best customers. Why do they buy from you and why do they stay. And to use that. As your differentiator. So your approach and your differentiator. Aligns perfectly with your client's most nagging. Business challenges and how you and you alone. Are able to help them resolve those. And that is why alignment. Is a key factor. In finding your differentiator, your true differentiator. Once again, I appreciate you listening. If you found anything in here, insightful, please share with your audience. If you would like to look at what. And aligned strategy looks like between your buyers and your sales outreaches. You know where to find me. On LinkedIn. I am summer politely rhymes with spaghetti. And you can find me online@theriseofus.com. Thank you for listening and tune in later this week for another hidden gem with fresh perspective.