Ingredient 3: Differentiation

All entrepreneurs in every marketplace need to differentiate themselves in positive and appealing ways in the eyes of existing and potential clientele. Some entrepreneurs are obviously better at doing this than others. Much of the skill that makes one entrepreneurial company better than others lies in having a clearer, deeper understanding of what prospective and existing clients are looking for. The value of products and services is never inherent. In fact, they have no value whatsoever if customers don’t want to pay for them. Even more significant is the realization that, deep down, consumers aren’t looking for products or services at all. What they are looking for are fundamental strategies and processes that enable them to be more productive and profitable using their existing capabilities and resources.

Ingredient 4: Value Creation

The idea of “value creation” is a hot topic in organizational and management circles today. Virtually all industries are caught in a “commoditization trap” where survival and success increasingly depend upon selling products and services at lower prices. The more that price cutting is on consumers’ minds, the more necessary it is to offer them something extra to differentiate yourself from all the other price cutters. Everywhere, in every marketplace, there is a greater need to create and provide greater value around every kind of commodity sale.

Entrepreneurs operating in Unique Processes provide much higher levels of value in all of their relationships. They are masters of value creation. Clients of Unique Process entrepreneurs pay premium prices for their services, and are deeply appreciative of the quality experience and comprehensive solutions they receive for their money.

Ingredient 5: Transformation

In today’s marketplace, many consumers are looking to transform their situations. In other words, they aren’t satisfied with incremental improvements; they want dramatic changes for the better. They want breakthroughs and quantum leaps. Your prospects and clients want to become new, better, and different people.

This desire for transformation requires an entirely new kind of business structure: the Unique Process. The very essence of the Unique Process is transformational. It enables there to be a continual transformation of clients’ most pressing issues: the things that most worry them, the things that most excite them, and the things they feel most confident about. All of these are related to their most ambitious desires for the future. For entrepreneurs and their teams, the Unique Process approach requires that all of their wisdom, knowledge, capabilities, and methods are transformed as they create new solutions for the specific problems and requirements of their clientele.

Ingredient 6: Bypass

One of the striking features of all Unique Process entrepreneurs is that they seldom, if at all, talk about “the competition.” They don’t compare themselves to other entrepreneurs and companies in their industry, and they don’t worry about them or try to copy them. In many ways, Unique Process entrepreneurs seem to operate and grow within their own custom-designed industries and marketplaces, free of all competitors.

Ingredient 7: Intellectual Capital

The factor that most differentiates Unique Process entrepreneurs from all others is the continual creation and proprietary ownership of intellectual capital. One of our clients, Don Munce, explains it this way: “When I first got into business, I paid to use other people’s ideas and tools. Now we create our own, and other people pay us to use them.”

As a coach for more than 30 years, I’ve found that most successful entrepreneurs have creative ideas that they use in day-to-day business, but they never go any further than that. Unique Process entrepreneurs, however, go a crucial step further, capturing their ideas and packaging them so that many other people can use them. Once they are in packaged form, everybody knows where the ideas came from.

Ingredient 8: Monopoly

Deep in their competitive hearts, all entrepreneurs want their own marketplace monopoly. On the surface they may say they love competition, but I don’t believe it. I’ve discovered from decades of discussions with thousands of entrepreneurs that what they really love is being more in control of their personal and professional futures. In Strategic Coach, Unique Process entrepreneurs achieve what we call “value creation monopolies,” which provide that sense of control. A value creation monopoly is a permanent and practical ownership of a market niche that no competitor can comprehend or duplicate.