4 Ways to Create Competitive Advantage

You want to tilt the playing field in your direction. Here are four (of many ways) you can personally create a competitive advantage:

1. Work Harder: No one can outwork you without you allowing it. If you are getting out-hustled, that’s on you. You control how much work you do. You control how much of an effort you make. You control whether or not you produce excellence or mediocrity. If your competitor is beating you here, you are allowing it to happen. You create an advantage for you and your company when you work harder.
2. Get There First: You need to prospect (social media isn’t very useful here, but for LinkedIn). You need to nurture your dream clients  (social media can be exceedingly valuable here). Both of these efforts needs to result in your obtaining a face-to-face meeting (Or what my friend, Nate Wright, referring to video, would call “digital face to digital face meetings.”) You create a competitive advantage by getting there first.
3. Create More Value: You can create more value. You can be more responsive. You can be more valuable in understanding the real source of your client’s need to change, or you can teach them that they need to. You can help them better detriment what they need, and you can help create a bigger vision. There are literally countless ways that you can create more value, even if it requires more time, more energy, more creativity, and a greater presence. Value creates a competitive advantage.
4. Wire the Building: You can wire the building by developing deep relationships vertically and horizontally. You can generate trust by showing up and paying attention to the people most salespeople ignore. You can create a competitive advantage by helping your prospective client develop consensus within their company. That ability—and the willingness to do it—creates a competitive advantage.

Here is a YouTube video I recorded about the importance of having a competitive advantage.