The Myth of the Key Differentiator
I was talking with someone today about another software consulting company, and something came up that is common among both product companies and consulting companies: key differentiators. The person said to me how important it is that we really narrow down and focus in on our key differentiators so that those are clear to prospective clients.
How could I disagree? This is business 101. Your website should spell them out, make them clear, reveal them from across a crowded, noisy room upon the most casual glance. Make sure people know your key differentiators!
So then we started talking about this other person’s company and he was quick to tell me his key differentiator. What was it? “We’re not like other software consulting companies because we solve your entire business problem. We’re done when the problem is gone.”
I heard this and found myself nodding and saying “yes. right!”. But inside I was feeling some cognitive dissonance. “You solve my businesses problems, do you? And that’s how you’re different?” How could that be a key differentiator? Why was I nodding? Why would he say that? Isn’t a key differentiator supposed to be something unique? After all, it does include the word “different”.
That’s when I realized that I was getting taught a sales technique. An important one. The technique is to get my interest and then tell me something that I want to hear.
Of course there isn’t anything unique about solving business problems as a consulting company. So my overly literal brain had a hard time thinking of it as a ‘key differentiator’. But it’s also not exactly how every software consulting company works. Some software consulting companies provide staff-aug coders-for-hire, some do project teams for hire, and some do a mix of management consulting and actual software delivery. He was telling me that his company was in that latter category.
He got my interest by saying “here’s what’s different about us”. From the moment he said those words, my ears went into listening mode. I was curious. How are they different than the ten thousand other software consulting shops out there? Then he told me something that a business executive would want to hear: “we solve your business problem.” That same business executive is being approached by other software shops that are telling him that they have the cheapest rates, or the most expert team, or that they do the biggest projects, or that they’re the only ones running mission critical software doing container orchestration with kubernetes, on cloud-hybrid enviroments — zzzzzzzzz.
In other words, those other companies have the wrong key differentiators because they are approaching this business executive with key differentiators that would be more appropriate to a CFO, or a dev manager, or a CTO.
So going back to this idea of coming up with key differentiators the important thing is *not* that your key differentiator literally makes your company unique. The important thing is that your key differentiator is something about your company that your prospective client wants to hear. And at the end of the day, there are no uniqueness police. If your key differentiators don’t really set you apart from all the other companies in your space, it doesn’t make any difference. Just the fact that you’ve figured out what your prospective clients want to hear will set you apart from almost all of them.
