Thou Shall Make The Ordinary Extraordinary

So, if you’re fol­low­ing the com­mand­ments, you should now have a unique name, pos­si­bly a tagline, and estab­lished your­self as the first or leader in your unique cat­e­gory. What about the ser­vice or prod­uct you offer? Do you offer an extra­or­di­nary prod­uct or ser­vice, or do you offer an ordi­nary one?

Even if the ser­vice you pro­vide is cus­tom­ary, tra­di­tional, and prob­a­bly offered by your com­pe­ti­tion, you should make it appear unique just as well.

Remem­ber that per­cep­tion is more pow­er­ful than truth. You don’t need to empha­size that your prod­uct or ser­vice is unique, bet­ter than the com­pe­ti­tion, or even the best for that mat­ter. Doing so by declar­ing that it is can some­times be worse than not say­ing any­thing at all, and the rea­son for that is that it makes your self-​​serving claim appear sus­pect or exaggerated.

For instance, if you told peo­ple that you’re prod­uct or ser­vice is num­ber one in the mar­ket­place, your clients will prob­a­bly either laugh at you or in the very least ques­tion your state­ment. But if you put a name on your prod­uct or ser­vice (and trade­mark it if pos­si­ble), you will indi­rectly cast an aura of exclu­siv­ity and supe­ri­or­ity and do so with­out utterly flaunt­ing it.

By the way, please note that unique trade­marks don’t need to be reg­is­tered, unless you are look­ing for finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion if some­one ever copies you. In that case, you must go through a trade­mark lawyer to reg­is­ter your name. I am not a lawyer and please do not con­sider this as legal advice. I strongly rec­om­mend that you see a trade­mark or cor­po­rate lawyer for assis­tance in this area, espe­cially if you’re seek­ing to pre­vent any form of piracy.

How­ever, once you’ve con­ducted a thor­ough search and as a result found that your trade­mark is indeed orig­i­nal, after for­mally reg­is­ter­ing your trade­mark you will be able to use the “” (or reg­is­tered trade­mark sym­bol) rather than the “TM” in all your com­mu­ni­ca­tions — and keep copy­cats at bay or even sue them should they ever use your names or taglines.

Nev­er­the­less, keep in mind that per­cep­tion is pow­er­ful. When it comes to the per­cep­tion of a prod­uct or ser­vice, it will gen­er­ally fall into either one of three cat­e­gories. (This is espe­cially true with ser­vices since they are intan­gi­ble.) The first one is the “cus­tom­ary,” the sec­ond is the “assumed,” and the third is the “unique.” Let’s take a look at each ele­ment in more detail.

The Customary

You might be a book­keeper offer­ing an income tax ser­vice as part of your port­fo­lio — one that is widely offered by most book­keep­ers these days. But don’t just leave it like that. Say “Ask us about our spe­cial ‘Total Tax Tran­quil­ity’ ser­vice.” If you’re a dry cleaner offer­ing a tie clean­ing ser­vice (as most dry-​​cleaners do), don’t just call it a “tie clean­ing ser­vice,” call it, “Bring your ties out of retire­ment with our ‘Re-​​TIE-​​rement Reversal’.”

Before we go any fur­ther, you’re prob­a­bly think­ing that you’re a pro­fes­sional busi­nessper­son rep­re­sent­ing a high class, high qual­ity prod­uct or ser­vice, and that this type of strat­egy is too “hokey” or that it doesn’t apply to you.

When I started out in busi­ness, I was a busi­ness devel­op­ment con­sul­tant spe­cial­iz­ing in med­ical prac­tices. Deal­ing with a pro­fes­sional clien­tele, I heard this type of objec­tion all the time. How­ever, I still say that it is pos­si­ble for you to use this tech­nique, even in these cir­cum­stances — and prob­a­bly more so since doc­tors and pro­fes­sion­als are pro­hib­ited from claim­ing superiority.

For instance, I often search the local yel­low pages, in the doc­tor and den­tist sec­tions, to find poten­tial clients. One day, I was imme­di­ately struck by an ad from a par­tic­u­lar den­tist who spe­cial­izes in pain and anx­i­ety man­age­ment. He has an anes­thetist on staff, and uses intra­venous and gen­eral seda­tion for his patients in order to make den­tal work a more com­fort­able expe­ri­ence. Most den­tists offer this “ordi­nary” ser­vice. But what did his ad say?

The head­line was made up of two sim­ple words: “Dream Dentistry.”

Even if your ser­vice is cus­tom­ary or sim­i­lar to that of your competitor’s, by putting a name on an often name­less prod­uct you cast an aura of unique­ness and supe­ri­or­ity — with­out hav­ing to state it out­right. As one of my men­tors used to say, “Impli­ca­tion is more pow­er­ful than specification!”

The result­ing effect is that not only will the name keep you in the back of your prospects’ minds but it will also cre­ate curios­ity, arouse inter­est and enhance desire. By and large, if peo­ple had to choose between a gen­eral prod­uct and one that implies a bet­ter or more unique kind of prod­uct (with some kind of added value), more than likely they will go for the sec­ond option.

For instance, if you owned an imported car that needed a brake job, whom would you choose: A gen­eral mechanic? Or one who spe­cial­izes in imported cars by mar­ket­ing with, “Are your brakes scream­ing in a dif­fer­ent lan­guage? See us for your Quicker-​​than-​​Customs for­eign car brake inspection”?

You get the pic­ture. (Whoops! I’m get­ting ahead of myself again, since this exam­ple also reflects Com­mand­ment #4, which is the power of spe­cial­iza­tion. But I guess you’re get­ting used to me by now, right?)

The Assumed

Speak­ing of mechan­ics, are you a mechanic and, as nor­mal prac­tice, offer free esti­mates? If you are a mechanic, you most likely do. Suf­fice it to say, pretty much every­body expects free esti­mates from mechan­ics or garages these days. How­ever, as sim­ple as it may sound, if you spec­ify that which is usu­ally taken for granted, you help to make your name stick in the mind!

For exam­ple, you might call your free esti­mate, “The Has­sle Free­dom For­mula” or the “No Greater than Guessti­mate Esti­mate.” Or your tagline could even be some­thing like, “Where Smiles and Esti­mates are Free!”

It might sound silly but this process is so sim­ple… And it works. Peo­ple may or may not know that garages offer free esti­mates and, more often than not, they only assume that they do. But with a name in which peo­ple are indi­rectly told that esti­mates are free, peo­ple are now assured that they pro­vide them!

In other words, you’re turn­ing an assumed prod­uct or ser­vice into an assured one in the minds of peo­ple. And in this day and age where peo­ple no longer have time to search for spe­cific infor­ma­tion, when they’ll need a free esti­mate your name will pop into their minds instantaneously.

This sim­ple tech­nique is indeed remark­ably effective.

As shown in the pre­vi­ous exam­ple, mak­ing the ordi­nary extra­or­di­nary is like turn­ing the assumed into the assured. Assur­ance is a great mar­ket­ing strat­egy. In fact, there is an immense power behind guar­an­tees, and I love mar­ket­ing on this remark­able con­cept. Some peo­ple think that guar­an­tees are out­dated, overused, and inef­fec­tive. Oth­ers think that they are not nec­es­sary or will increase returns. I know for a fact that that’s not true.

Peo­ple not only love guar­an­tees, but as I said ear­lier, in today’s com­pet­i­tive mar­ket­place you need to stand out like a sore thumb. And a good way to do this is by offer­ing a guar­an­tee in one form or another so that, when placed side-​​by-​​side with a com­peti­tor, you will be the one who’s chosen.

Guar­an­tees some­times frighten peo­ple because it involves tak­ing a great risk on the part of the entre­pre­neur. The pos­si­ble loss of rev­enue is a fright­en­ing idea for many peo­ple. But if you have a good prod­uct, have had good expe­ri­ence with it and believe in it whole­heart­edly, guar­an­tees can become pow­er­ful weapons in build­ing sales. They com­mu­ni­cate instant credibility.

As a mat­ter of fact, guar­an­tees help to reduce returns. Why? They are often per­ceived as an expres­sion of con­fi­dence in the prod­uct or ser­vice. With scams, schemes and snake oils ram­pant, peo­ple have a ten­dency to for­give far more eas­ily busi­nesses that are cred­i­ble, have greater cus­tomer ser­vice and have shown, through guar­an­tees, to believe in their products.

Guar­an­tees not only increase sales but also com­mu­ni­cate con­fi­dence, trust and supe­ri­or­ity — includ­ing the per­cep­tion of supe­rior cus­tomer service.

Nev­er­the­less, if you still wish to avoid guar­an­tees or if your type of work stops you from doing so (as in the case of doc­tors who are legally pro­hib­ited from doing so), there are three key areas here you may want to consider.

First, does your prod­uct or ser­vice pro­vide a result that is quan­tifi­able and mea­sur­able? Sec­ond, can your prod­uct or ser­vice be eas­ily replaced or exchanged? And third, do you offer addi­tional prod­ucts or ser­vices out­side your core port­fo­lio that you can pro­vide in order to sat­isfy your client?

If you’re not pre­pared to give a full-​​money back guar­an­tee, you might want to con­sider an indi­rect guar­an­tee — such as by adding or sub­tract­ing some­thing instead, some­thing dif­fer­ent that appeals to your clients. Here’s an example.

You’re a sales train­ing con­sul­tant offer­ing sem­i­nars on sales pro­duc­tiv­ity. You might want to offer a guar­an­tee that promises an increase in your client’s sales results by, say, 25% fol­low­ing your sem­i­nar. If your client’s sales­force doesn’t meet this goal within a spe­cific period of time, you could offer an addi­tional sem­i­nar (or one-​​on-​​one, phone con­sult­ing) free of charge.

You may be a mar­ket­ing con­sul­tant com­pen­sated on a per­cent­age of the client’s sales (also called “con­tin­gency con­sult­ing”). It’s really a guar­an­tee in itself. But as a name for your guar­an­tee, you may want to call it the “Risk Reverser.” You might give a bonus prod­uct or ser­vice free of charge as a way to thank your client for their busi­ness. In this case, don’t just offer it as a stan­dard part of your pack­age. Mar­ket it in the form of a guarantee.

For instance, if you are a project man­age­ment con­sul­tant in the com­puter field, you could add a bonus-​​training sem­i­nar to be con­ducted after your con­sult­ing con­tract is com­pleted in order to guar­an­tee that peo­ple main­tain your work effec­tively after you’re gone. As a result, you can call it the “After-​​Project Assur­ance” guar­an­tee or the “Per­fect Project Pledge.”

In essence, the idea is to guar­an­tee that which is a gen­er­ally assumed part of your busi­ness. If the prospect per­ceives that doing busi­ness with you has some added value, even if that which you offer is iden­ti­cal to your com­pe­ti­tion or included in a total pack­age, you will be able to destroy your competition!

Often, the prob­lem not only lies with what prospects per­ceive but also with what busi­ness own­ers per­ceive. They too wrong­fully assume that parts of their prod­ucts or ser­vices are not impor­tant, that mar­ket­ing them is unnec­es­sary, or as one doctor-​​client of mine once said, that “it all comes with the ter­ri­tory.” I’m sure you’ve heard the joke about what hap­pens when you assume…

You get the picture.

By the way, that client of mine removes stitches from and fol­lows up with his patients after surgery, and doesn’t bill them for these seem­ingly ordi­nary ser­vices. In fact, they are com­mon prac­tice through­out the entire med­ical com­mu­nity. I asked him to put a name on it. He now calls it his post­op­er­a­tive “Patient Progress Pro­gram.” Remem­ber, if you turn the ordi­nary into the extra­or­di­nary, you will turn ordi­nary mar­ket­ing into extra­or­di­nary results.

The Unique

Above all, you may still be offer­ing some very spe­cial or unique prod­uct or ser­vice that your com­pe­ti­tion doesn’t offer at all. If so, that’s great! How­ever, the same rule applies. Don’t just leave it to a vague title or descrip­tion, since it will still be per­ceived as sim­i­lar at first glance or with­out know­ing about it.

Put a name on it, even if it’s not entirely new. If you’re a man­age­ment con­sul­tant offer­ing sem­i­nars on how to get the most out of a par­tic­u­lar soft­ware you’ve cus­tomized, call it the “Soft­ware Savvy in a Cinch Seminar.”

In fact, while hav­ing a unique prod­uct or ser­vice beats the pre­vi­ous two cat­e­gories in cre­at­ing top-​​of-​​mind aware­ness, it doesn’t have to be entirely new. It can be copied and cus­tomized in such a way that it appears unique or new. Accord­ing to Brian Tracy in his pro­gram “The Psy­chol­ogy of Sell­ing,” many peo­ple have made for­tunes by sim­ply improv­ing a cur­rent prod­uct by merely 10% yet pack­aged it in a dif­fer­ent way. Remem­ber the “pet rock”?

This goes back to the issue of per­cep­tion. I once watched an Oprah Win­frey Show in which Oprah did an inter­est­ing piece on mar­ket­ing. She con­ducted an apple juice taste test in malls across the United States.

While the pro­gram was focus­ing par­tic­u­larly on how com­pa­nies can eas­ily use false or mis­lead­ing adver­tis­ing, the results of the test revealed some inter­est­ing facts nonethe­less about the way the mind works.

She had two bot­tles of apple juice. One was a plain, white plas­tic con­tainer with a label don­ning a pic­ture of an apple. Very plain. Noth­ing fancy. The sec­ond bot­tle, how­ever, was an intri­cately shaped glass bot­tle car­ry­ing a red label with the pic­ture of a woman prepar­ing apple juice in her kitchen.

When peo­ple were asked which apple juice tasted bet­ter, the major­ity said that the juice from the glass bot­tle tasted bet­ter. The sur­prise came when she announced to her audi­ence that the juices from both bot­tles were exactly the same! (She actu­ally showed footage of her staff fill­ing the bottles.)

Not bad, isn’t it? But it didn’t stop there. When she asked her par­tic­i­pants why they chose the juice from the red labeled bot­tle, their answers were aston­ish­ing. They said, “It tastes really good,” “it’s much bet­ter than the other one,” “it’s sweeter tast­ing,” or “it has more fla­vor.” When asked why, one said: “The pic­ture of the lady prepar­ing the juice in her kitchen indi­cates to me that more care and atten­tion was given into mak­ing it, so it has to be better.”

It all boils down to the fact that per­ceived truth is indeed more pow­er­ful than truth itself. When it comes to your unique prod­uct or ser­vice, pay close atten­tion to how you pack­age it — the name and descrip­tion you put on it.

This is how brand names have become generic in the minds of peo­ple. If it’s per­ceived as unique or as the best through its name, then it is. How­ever, it is dif­fi­cult for me to give you spe­cific exam­ples here since the unique­ness of your prod­uct or ser­vice will deter­mine your entire approach.

The key is to mar­ket your “orig­i­nal” prod­uct or ser­vice in such a way so that, if it is ever copied, your prod­uct or service’s name remains firmly fixed in the mar­ket­place and that your competitor’s attempt to copy you will only but remind your prospects of you. If you can, add a guar­an­tee or a tagline to your prod­uct or ser­vice, such as “Flat-​​Rate Fash­ion Facials. Flat Out Fantastic!”

Ulti­mately, make your prod­uct or ser­vice out­stand­ing by mak­ing it stand out!

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

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