Differentiation means your offering wins the way you want it to win. Winning the way you want to win has two parts. First, you are distinct. This means your customer thinks your offering stands out from your competition. Second, you are distinct in a way that is in alignment with your value proposition. This means your value proposition works the way that you want it to work. If you don’t win the way you want to win your success is just luck.
Every offering makes promises. Some promises matter and some don’t. The best possible offerings focus on the one promise that matters most. The fact is one promise is easier to keep than more than one. The less you promise the more likely you will keep it. This is the way that you win. On the other hand, the more you promise the less likely you will keep it. This is the way that you lose. In other words, promising less is better and more is worse.
An offering is a solution that you sell in a market. The logic of an offering is simple. Its purpose is to create value and succeed. This logic doesn’t change no matter what you sell or who you sell it to. This means that the purpose of a business is to create the best possible offerings. In other words, if you are in business you need to be in business to win.
Offerings are the main way that you create value for your customers. There are two directions that you can take. On one hand, you can choose to maximize. This means that you choose to make life better. On the other hand, you can choose to minimize. This means that you choose to make life easier. To win you need to make the right choice.
If you are a leader of a company, there is a key question that you need to answer. It is: How do you create value and succeed right now? The answer begins and ends with your offerings. An offering is a solution that you sell in a market. To survive and thrive you need to have the best possible offerings. You need to play to win or you don’t need to play at all.
A value proposition is a set of promises that your offering makes to your customers. Some matter and some don’t. To win you need to have a clear value proposition. It needs to be clear to both you and your customer. In other words, you and your customer need to have a shared understanding of what matters and what doesn’t. There is no way around it.
There is one fatal mistake when it comes to your offering. It’s the lack of focus. This leads to three problems. First, lack of focus creates confusion. You don’t understand your whole offering. Second, it creates contradiction. You don’t see how the parts of your offering fit together. Third, it creates ambiguity. You don’t know what you need to do to win right now.
To have clarity means that you clearly understand the current situation. When you lack clarity you don’t know what you need to prioritize now or what you need to ignore now. To get clarity you need to have two things in place. First, you need to create coherence. This means that things need to make sense to you. Second, you need to create consensus. This means that you and the people that matter most to you have a shared understanding.
Each one of your offerings make a set of promises to your customers. Some of these promises matter and some don’t. The fact is there is a small number of things you can pay attention to at any one time. You have limited bandwidth. This means that the more promises your offering makes, the more likely it will confuse both you and your customer. On the other hand, the best offerings focus on the one promise that matters the most.
The logic of focus is a simple choice. To get focus you must prioritize what matters and ignore what doesn’t. This is the way that you create the best possible outcome right now. The real challenge is that things will change. As things change, what matters and what doesn’t will also change but the way you win will stay the same. You need to have focus.
