Elevate THINK BEYOND

Every Thursday we have a team lunch. Being located in downtown Omaha, we have a great selection of places to choose from; M’s Pub, Twisted Fork, Jackson Street Tavern, and Wheatfields are all common places to run into us. This myriad of restaurants also means a myriad of choices. Some days I know in my heart of hearts that the chicken salad is going to hit the spot. Other days I crave the Thai pork satay or the steak sandwich with a side of onion soup. With this bevy of possibilities, how is one man to choose the perfect meal to compliment and enhance the next six hours of his life? Like the old wise saying goes, “with great power there must also come great responsibility…” and in this case the only person that will be let down if I fail is me. All of a sudden, a new weight is thrust upon this seemingly simple task.

Nobody likes to make the wrong decision. I’ll admit, the lunch choice is a small one; it only affects a single afternoon and fate affords another roll of the die each day. However, what happens with the bigger ones? How does someone choose what book to read for the next few days, what kind of shoes to to wear for the next few months, or what style of furniture to use for the next few years? I was recently in the market for a TV, and with the internet bringing so many choices and spec sheets, things got difficult fast. It took me hours of research, forum crawling, and review site reading to distill the perfect purchase in my price range (*cough*Panasonic TC-P50UT50*cough*). In these choice-laden times, differentiation is absolutely key to an effective strategy. The signal-to-noise ratio has never been greater.

Imagine two red apples that look exactly the same. They’re the same weight, same size, same color. Which one would you choose to eat? Chances are you wouldn’t. Chances are you’d just grab one. For all you know one choice could be the cure for cancer, but these apples appear to be the same. Maybe they taste different; maybe the sweet crunch of apple B is far superior to the tangy mush of apple A. You don’t know because the only sensory stimulus is visual, and even that is ambiguous at best. If each of these apples were distributed by separate companies, each company would be taking a massive risk by relying on pure chance that their apple would be chosen. They would also be taking a massive risk by relying solely on similarity to something else to drive sales .

Sometimes its fear, sometimes its budget, and sometimes its just lack of research that drive “safe” decisions. Chance is not an effective strategy. Imitation, while the sincerest form of flattery, is not an effective strategy (unless your goal is to promote the competitor - i.e. the picture above I took in December at the Mall of America). Copying someone else’s strengths communicates weakness in yourself.

Don’t do that.