↓ Listen to this edition right here. Hit play below! (Yes, this is me. Not AI.) Audio Length | 4 min 30 sec

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What makes you different?

It sounds simple. But It’s one of the hardest questions a business owner can be asked.

When I ask it in a firsi meeting, I usually hear one of two answers. The first is a list of qualities: great service, high quality, a team that cares. The second is a look: a new logo, a refreshed website, a color palette. Both have value. Neither answers the question, because they blur two ideas that sound alike.

Differentiation is not the same as distinctiveness.

Distinctive means recognizable. It’s the color, the typeface, the sound, the tone of voice. It makes you easy to remember and easy to find. Apple always looks like Apple. Tiffany owns a shade of robin’s-egg blue so completely that a box can carry the brand before anyone reads the name.

Different means meaningfully unlike your alternatives, in a way a customer cares about. It’s a reason to choose you.

Distinctiveness without difference is a costume. Plenty of brands look unmistakable and offer nothing a competitor doesn’t. Difference without distinctiveness is the opposite problem: a real advantage nobody notices.

You need both, but difference comes first, because it’s the harder one to fake. Apple’s look is the visible edge of a different way of designing products. Tiffany’s box works because of what people believe is inside it. The look is how people spot the difference. It isn’t the difference itself.

So if your answer is a design refresh, a tagline, or a list of values every competitor also claims, that’s worth noticing. You may have worked hard on being distinctive without ever deciding what makes you different.

Here’s the thing: differentiation only needs to be one degree

Most owners assume differentiation requires a big leap. A new category. A breakthrough. A shocking campaign. Occasionally it does. Far more often, it starts with a premise just one degree away from your rivals, and then you hold that premise with discipline for years.

Consider Liquid Death. Bottled water is about as undifferentiated as a product gets. The brand didn’t change the water. It changed the frame: a tallboy can, the attitude of a heavy metal band instead of a spa, and an idea held consistently enough that nobody confuses it with a competitor. Same product, different premise. One degree.

Notice what that doesn’t require: a bigger budget, a new invention, or a reinvented industry. It requires a choice, and then the discipline to keep making it.

That’s where most businesses struggle. Not in coming up with the idea, but in staying with it. The premise gets dropped in a slow quarter, diluted by the third new service line, or buried when someone new wants to put their own stamp on it. One degree only compounds if you keep moving in the same direction.

So here’s a question to sit with this week. What’s one degree you could move away from your closest competitor that’s true, that’s yours, and that you’d still be willing to hold in five years?

If you can answer that, you’re further along than most.

If you’d like to go deeper on differentiation, I’ve shared more details here: What Makes You Different: How Brands Stand Out

That’s all we have time for today.

Until our next BrandTherapy session…

Thanks,
Andy

P.S. Know a business owner who seems to be wrestling with their positioning, marketing, or what to do next? I’m always happy to meet smart people facing interesting business challenges. An introduction is always appreciated.