Shameless plug: I am a big fan of Hinge - their webinars, their LinkedIn group (Professional Services Executive Forum), their smart people and, most of all, their research and free publications.
I have been reading a recent Hinge publication called "Differentiation Guide for Professional Services Firms." In Chapter 1, "Understanding Differentiation for Professional Services," the book cites three rules of brand differentiation:
1. Your differentiator must be true - you can't just make it up.
2. It must be important to your client - your client must care about that difference.
3. It must be supportable - you must be able to prove it.
I think these three criteria are all well and good, but they reminded me of a concept I learned in a college economics class: "necessary but not sufficient."
While three three criteria are definitely necessary in establishing your firm's differentiator(s), I am convinced that there needs to be a fourth criterion:
4. Your differentiator must be unique - it can't be something many other firms can claim.
Let's say it is true that your firm has capabilities in GPS, GIS and BIM, and that all three technical capabilities can be integrated for a specific project. This is admirable. Let's also say that the ability to integrate these capabilities is important to your client. And finally, you can support the claim by providing the version of each software you use and how they interact.
But if another firm, much less many other firms, can also make this claim, it is a positive attribute, but not a true differentiator. In such a case, integrating these three capabilities makes you tech-savvy, but it doesn't make you different from other firms.
Although I hesitate to state the obvious, your true differentiators are things no other firm or team can say. So look at your list of what you think makes your firm/team different from the others and cross out any item that can be said by them. What's left (and, hopefully, there IS something left) is what makes you different.
The problem with all of this is the word "unique." Lots of firms have a place in their proposals where they describe what is unique about their firm, their team, their approach, etc. But take a random look at any 10 proposals in response to the same solicitation, and their lists of what makes them unique will have many of the same elements.
Unfortunately, many of us have come to believe that "unique" merely means "special," and refers to an attribute that would put us in a very small class of individuals or firms.
However, the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, which is located at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary, defines "unique" as "unlike anything or anyone else," "being the only one" or "being without a like or equal."
And since the same source defines a differentiator as something that makes an individual or firm different, any attribute on your list that is also on another firm's list can hardly be considered a differentiator.
You may be able to put limits or boundaries on your claim. For example, if proximity is an important criterion for the client and you are the largest firm with appropriate technical credentials headquartered in the client's city, that might be a differentiator for that client.
If the client is a small city doing a transit project that has both state and federal funding, your firm's focus on transit projects, experience with relevant state and federal agencies, and portfolio of successful projects responding to the regulations of multiple agencies might combine to make a powerful differentiator for that client.
But the bottom line is that if you can only claim to be like other firms, you have not given the client a reason to remember, much less select, your firm or team. The client needs to know what he/she gets by selecting you that WILL NOT accrue if another firm/team is selected.
Be sure that your list of differentiators actually makes you different from your competitors and not just like them.
"Cowbella and Friend"
(Austin downtown art cow collection)