You Are the Wedge

You need to drive a wedge between your dream client and your competitor. You do that through differentiation, being different in a way that makes a difference.

You also need to drive a wedge between your dream client and the status quo. You do that by focusing on your dream client’s dissatisfaction and the cost of not changing.

In both of these cases, you can be the wedge.

You as Differentiation

You are a major component of your dream client’s decision to buy your solution. If you have the business acumen, the ability to lead change, and the ability to lead a team to get your dream client results, you can be the major point of differentiation.

This is what people mean when they say trusted advisor. Those words don’t mean that you are someone who simply offers advice. It means you are someone that they trust to help move their business from its current state to its desired future. It means you help them imagine that future.

You are different when you move past selling product, selling experiences, selling business outcomes, and move to the strategic.

Exercising your business acumen and helping to create your client’s future makes you a wedge. Helping build the consensus for change makes you a wedge. Leading your team and your client’s team makes you a wedge.

Moving to strategic can differentiate you and make you a wedge between your dream client and your competitors. But what about the status quo?

You, the Wedge as a Hedge Against the Status Quo

If you are going to be the wedge between your dream client and the status quo, your dream client has to be certain that you are going to own the outcomes that you sold.

The status quo may be painful. It may come with a whole lot of pain. It may even be putting your dream client through Hell. But they’ve lived in Hell for a while, and they’ve gotten to know the devil.

You are the wedge between your client and the status quo when you are trusted enough to own and manage the outcome that you sell. Your dream client needs to know that you are going join them in the foxhole, and you aren’t going to sell them an outcome and disappear without that outcome being realized.

This is why relationships are important. This is why presence is important. This is why building consensus is important. When your dream client is choosing between you and the status quo, they have to believe that you are the safer choice, that the greater risk is the status quo.

Be the wedge by being the difference that makes a difference. Then be the wedge between your dream client and the status quo by being someone they trust to help them make their future.