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Differentiate, stand out, WIN

Tags: Be interesting | Impact | Marketing | Influencing

29th November

There’s lots of noise out there…

Lots of people. Saying lots of stuff. Lots of times.

It's hard to get heard.

So how can we differentiate ourselves from all the noise? How can we stand out? How can we maximise our chance of winning?

Well, the easiest way to stand out a lot, is to focus on those words – ‘easy’ and ‘a lot’.

In other words, identify a few changes you could make, so you’d stand out more. And then, for each of these changes, ask two questions:

  1. Easy – is it easy for you to do?
  2. A lot – will it make you stand out a lot?

For example, if you want to impress your boss even more than you do, here are a few things you could do (some are better than others!):

  1. Keep doing exactly what you've always done. Change nothing. And hope something improves
  2. Drive to her house at 5am every morning. When she comes down the drive, ask if there's anything you can do today to help her
  3. Spend longer on everything she asks you to do – working late into the evening and over the weekend
  4. Ask her what her most important priorities are, and what you can do differently to help her achieve them
  5. When she asks you to prepare a communication for her, agree with her upfront what the skeleton/headings will be. That way, you’ll give her exactly what she wants – right first time
  6. Ask someone who knows her well what they advise you do differently, to impress her more
  7. Be direct. Go to her, and say you want a promotion. Ask what she advises you do, to make sure you get it
  8. Every time you communicate with her, pay extra attention to how you start. After all, your start is her first impression. The better the start, the better the first impression… and the better you impress her Look at your colleagues. Identify the one(s) she seems to find impressive. What can you learn (ok, copy) from how they behave?
  9. Etc, etc…

Of these, which is/are best? Clearly, the one(s) that:

  1. Easy – is easy for you to do
  2. A lot – will make you stand out a lot

And even more clearly – NOT the top three (which are the ones people usually do!)

Action Point

Identify an area where you really want to differentiate, stand out, WIN.

And then do the exercise above. List changes. Grade each one for easy/a lot… and then do your best option.