part0010

With so much ‘noise’ in all business sectors across both digital and traditional channels, it’s more important than ever for you to stand out over the background crackle of static. Knowing and maximising your point of difference in the eyes of your customers is key to your strategic plan’s successful outcome. The days when businesses could sit back on their laurels and rely on a regular stream of customers, limited by their choices of supplier, are long gone. These days, it pays (yes, it’s essential) to be ‘disruptive’, another one of those jargon terms that has crept its way into the business world’s lexicon. I can fully understand why many people find it an ugly or unwanted term, but the truth is, if you’re an entrepreneur looking to scale up your business, if you’re not seen as a disruptor, or disrupting the status quo in some way, then you might as well pack up and go home. If you’re not making enough noise these days, then the world will simply pass you by.

Therefore, you must recalibrate your thinking about the word ‘disrupt’ and destigmatise it. What it tells us is that in business you need to be seen differently by your customers, but what worries many of the SME business owners that talk to me is how they learn to be disruptive. Some feel that it’s not in their nature, but that’s because they mistake the word as being the same as ‘aggressive’ or ‘rude’. It’s not, and furthermore, we’re all born disruptive when we scream for our mother’s attention wanting to be fed. As children growing up, we’re not inhibited by social norms because we don’t know what they are, and we inherently understand that to get what we want, we need to disrupt the status quo by making an impact on those whose attention we seek. If we hold onto our natural childlike abilities to disrupt and ignore our learned, preconceived ideas about what other people think about us, we can begin to re-learn how to make an impact.

That means we need to stand out more, and as a consequence, we must be prepared to be criticised. For some, that’s a difficult notion to embrace because of perhaps painful childhood memories where criticism manifests itself through bullying, maybe because they didn’t fit in at school. However, this is not about the way you feel, it’s about business and it’s not personal. Once people begin to criticise you, it shows they’re taking an interest in you and for that to happen you need to make some changes if you want to make an impact. It’s one of the most difficult things for many business owners to accept when they see their competitors conducting their own businesses in standardised ways. That being so, they ask me, why do they need to change? My response is, look at how Eddie Stobart disrupted the logistics and haulage sector, by using distinctively coloured trucks which each bore a woman’s name, to the extent that the business became a household name and a media favourite. His move to rebrand his vehicles was essentially a disruptive one in what was, quite frankly, a dull market of grey or black diesel-guzzlers and pollution emitters. Stobart realised that to stand out he needed to embrace change. In general, people don’t like, and are scared of, change. Stobart proved them wrong and his actions saw him scale his business from a small fleet of Carlisle-based vehicles to a national entity with more than 2,200 on the road.

Disruption, therefore, needn’t be an aggressive change, it can simply be doing things differently to everyone else. If you believe in what you’re doing and that fits with your strategy and your vision, then see it as an opportunity and embrace the fact that you are different. It doesn’t matter that not everybody will like it: you can be sure that as soon as people start commenting about and criticising you, suddenly you’ll reach terminal velocity. In all probability, more people will sit up and take notice and like what they see (as opposed to those that don’t), and many will jump ship and climb on board as your supporters and fans. With so much choice available to customers in the globalised marketplace, having a clear point of difference compared to your competitors raises your profile above the noise that is filled with a myriad of other products, just like yours. Do your homework and research what your competitors’ businesses look like in the eyes of the customer, but don’t be tempted to simply tweak a product or service if essentially it’s still the same as every other in the marketplace. To really stand out, challenge yourself and ask: what if you made your product, or provided your service, in a completely different way to everyone else? By adding a point of difference to your offering, your business can both disrupt, and capture, the attention of the market because it stands out from the crowd.

Nor do you have to be of Uber-sized proportions to realise the aspirations of the business. With your growth mind-set feeding your vision, mission and values, which are then aligned to your strategy, it’s possible to disrupt and create impact in almost any traditional sector. Disrupting can mean many things and doesn’t need a new invention. It could be as simple as changing the colour of your fleet of delivery vehicles from black to pink – that would certainly make your business stand out! Don’t allow your mind to think of disruption as a negative thing. More importantly, be prepared for the fact that no matter what, some people will always criticise you, especially as you become more successful. In my opinion, criticism in many ways is a good thing. You’re making people face their own insecurities because they’re not achieving what you are. Instead, allow yourself to think differently and enjoy those lightbulb moments. Allow yourself to dream and then take time to learn from your customers what they want and what they don’t want. Engage with them to discover what their frustrations and complaints are, since feedback of this nature is a gift to you and your business. In responding to their concerns and by improving your product, or service, you have the chance to convert those customers into your loyal ambassadors and, jointly, you could disrupt the market. When Virgin Atlantic transformed the cabin crew experience from the point of view of the customer, it was intoxicating to the market. It was still about the simple proposition of flying from A to B, except it had gone from being a functional to an experiential transaction. One ‘small’ shift in Virgin Atlantic’s customer service delivery resulted in a massive disruption to the airline industry as a whole and, as a result, many of its competitors had to play catch-up. It reinvented the long haul flight industry that previously hadn’t taken much notice of its customers’ frustrations and needs. Imagine what your business could achieve with similar thinking, irrespective of its size. Nor does it matter that all of your potentially disruptive ideas work; simply be prepared to fail fast and try the next one.