There are thousands of A/E and related firms across the United States, and many more outside the United States. Some of them are single-discipline firms with only a handful of full-time employees. Others are mid-size and large, multi-discipline A/E firms, each with hundreds, or maybe thousands, of employees. And still others are mega-firms that provide every kind of service you can think of and then some, each of them having tens of thousands of employees.
So who among all these is your real competition, and how do you distinguish your firm from the others?
Most firms look to identify internal attributes that distinguish them from their competitors. Unfortunately, it often seems that few firms actually understands what it means to "distinguish" themselves from the competition, and they wind up with lists of attributes that are very similar to those of their competitors. For example, if ABC Engineering provides the same services as XYZ Engineering, a somewhat larger firm, that does not distinguish ABC from XYZ. In fact, it proudly proclaims "we are the same." This is NOT the message ABC wants to convey to the marketplace.
Let's assume that ABC has come up with a list of its ten best differentiators. And ABC determines that this information can be most helpful in marketing—winning new clients and new work, as shared in Statements of Qualifications (SOQs), proposals, the company's website, and the various social media platforms the company utilizes.
So let's look at the company website as one of the tools ABC Engineering uses to distinguish itself from the competition. On its "About" page, ABC lists the ten distinguishing attributes. OK, great. Now look at the "About" pages in the websites of a few of ABC's competitors. How many of the items on THEIR lists of distinguishing attributes can be found on any or all of the others? If most of those lists say "client focused," "committed to quality," "visible experts in relevant fields," and "large firm services with small firm service," these are "good things" but they are hardly differentiators.
The website of one firm, EFG Design, actually has a navigation button labeled "How We're Different." But when you click the button, you get a list very similar to the others you just looked at. In fact, five of the ten items can be found on all of them.
The same with proposals. When the client moves on to the next proposal and five items on the list of differentiators are the same as the list in your proposal, the client thinks the two firms are interchangeable.
The client really doesn't care how your firm is like the other firms it might select. The client wants to know how your firm is different. They want to know what they will get if they select your firm that they won't get from any other firm that submits an SOQ or proposal. They want to know what they will learn in your short-list interview that they won't learn in any other firm's or team's short-list interview.
It doesn't matter whether the difference is in the services you provide, the quality of those services, the efficiency of your methods, the ease in which your administrative processes are navigated, the levels of creativity and innovation for which your firm is known, or any other factor. As long as you can say something the competition cannot.