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A manager of a large, but struggling, network support provider confided in me, "we all sell the same thing... there's no difference between what one network support company offers compared to another."

Here's the problem with his vision... when you see yourself as providing essentially the same computer support products your competitors sell, you immediately become a "victim" to brutal price competition. You are reduced to a commodity where the company with the lowest price wins.

Winning the lowest price war is the least profitable way to build a business. And it is the most risky. Lowest price attracts the most disloyal group of buyers. I call them "the cheapskates". And second, it is too easy for competitors to cut your legs out from under you by beating your price.

If you can't see and articulate a clear competitive advantage, your potential client won't see a reason to choose you over someone else. There is a solution. But cutting your price isn't the way to go.

There are more profitable ways to win more than your share of business without dropping your price. How? You could become a celebrity within your industry. You could become the high-price leader who only deals with a certain caliber of clients.

You can also differentiate by the way you market your business.

In every industry there are marketing strategies that are accepted as "the right way" to build a business. Unfortunately when you do what everyone else is doing, you sound and look like everyone else. You become a commodity.

One solution to this problem is to borrow strategies from other industries. Using marketing techniques uncommon to the computer support industry instantly makes you distinct. You sound unique because no one else sounds like you. And if anyone tries to copy you, they instantly sound like a copy cat. A "me too" loser.

Besides differentiating yourself by selecting from over 100 different marketing strategies you can:

- position yourself as first in some category or accomplishment or activity
- be contrarian in your marketing approach or service
- set yourself apart by being exclusive in the type of client you will accept or the types of services you deliver

Here are nine strategies that will help you differentiate your business while you attract new clients, sell more to existing clients and control client attrition:

1) Improve the efficiency and responsiveness of the marketing you're already doing
2) Define and clearly articulate a dominant competitive advantage
3) Cross sell, upsell, back end sell, look for reactivation opportunities
4) Develop complimentary alliances with other businesses
5) Exploit advertising media opportunities
6) Develop community relations and publicity opportunities
7) Profit from direct response marketing and advertising
8) Gain new business and sell more to existing clients through smart use of the internet
9) Find new uses for your products and services you may have overlooked until now

The reason these nine strategies will instantly differentiate you is because this process takes a non-traditional approach to marketing. Traditional marketing involves paying more and more money in ads or worse, cold calling people who don't want to hear from you.

This non-traditional marketing approach focuses on what you're already doing (or should be doing) and making it more responsive and more predictable without sounding like everyone else.

This is critical because in today's global marketplace differentiating yourself in the mind of clients and potential clients is the key to a company's survival. Failure to differentiate is the number one reason I believe companies struggle unnecessarily.

You may publish this article in your newsletter, on your website, or other publication as long as the article content is not altered and the resource box MUST include an active link. Notification of the use of this article is appreciated, but not required. Andre can be reached at http://www.andrebell.com/contact