At heart, I’m a product manager. I love taking ideas and trying to figure out how to package them up to be a complete product offering. One of the first things I always focus on is what differentiates the product or service offering.

Not long after I joined Nexient, I tried to figure out how we would differentiate ourselves. At the time, there were more than 10,000 software development consultancies globally and I wanted us to have a unique place in the market.

So I started by looking at our home page (see the image below). We were a firm of just over 200 people, but our website claimed to do almost anything an enterprise could need. I failed to see how we could be great at all of these things, and when I looked at our competitors’ websites it seemed like they were also making these claims. We were all fishing nets trying to catch any large corporate client that swam by. “You have a problem. We’re smart. We’ll solve your problem.”

What we actually had were a few areas that our sales team regularly highlighted, that emotionally connected with target customers and clients. That was the right place to start, so we tightened our messaging to really focus on three areas:

1. We were 100% US – this is fairly unique in the software development outsourcing space. There were only a handful of firms who could claim this. We felt that we could own it.
2. We were early adopters of the Agile development methodology – at the time, this was also a competitive advantage that most large companies didn’t offer.
3. We were delivery-center based – having our developers co-located in a delivery center in Ann Arbor created a powerful community. While teams might be working for clients in very different industries, they shared the technology they worked on and frequently shared tips and tricks with each other on the latest front end or back end technology trends.

With these core truths as our foundation, we then updated our positioning, making what we did and how we stood out in the market much clearer (see the image below).

In my last post, I talked about our name change and rebranding the company. A name is a core part of a brand, but even more crucial is getting a clear view of what you offer and how it’s differentiated and better than your competition. This simple yet important process was the next step to us elevating our brand. In the second home page image it’s much easier to see where we fit and our brand differentiation.

So how can you apply this to your services firm?

My unique perspective on the company came from my perspective as a product manager. There are some key things that product managers do that you should also consider with your firm:

• Know your specific market. How large is it? Is your competition fragmented or concentrated in a few firms? In my case, with 10,000+ firms globally, the market was fragmented. This creates a lot of noise, but also an opportunity to create something that stands out.
• Clearly differentiate your offering. No matter how large or small your firm, it’s critical to find a clear brand differentiation. It’s a leap of faith at first to narrow down your service offering – it feels like you’ll scare away potential revenue – but we found that it was easier for us to close new business as the clients who did buy from us valued what we offered.
• Listen to your team. They probably know already what differentiates you in the market. The team that is selling work for you will always find the pitch that works. They’ll know what clients buy and what they ignore.
• Listen to your clients. If you haven’t already, ask them why they buy from you. Ask them what makes your firm stand out in the market. If you haven’t done this before, the answer can be hard to hear, but it’s always better to hear so you can learn and grow.

A few final thoughts

Applying these rules to our own differentiation process was a key building block in the early days of Nexient. I believe that it played a significant role in building our revenue and growing our business.

The progress we made in this step was a big move forward for us and we celebrated it. I didn’t realize it yet, but I would soon learn another valuable lesson that would sharpen our positioning even further. When I proudly met with a potential advisor (an industry heavy hitter) to show off our new, crisp and differentiated positioning, he said it was good, “for now”, but that there was a lot more we’d need to do to stay ahead of the market. More on that in my next post.