Click to hear Takin’ Care of Business

“Hey man, that song sounds great, but you need some boogie woogie piano for it to really work.”

“Maybe, but we don’t have a piano player in the band, so who’s gonna play?”

“Me!”

And with that the pizza delivery guy, who looked remarkably like Fidel Castro, began to talk himself into playing some piano riffs for Takin’ Care of Business while the members of BTO ate the pizza he had just delivered to the recording studio. The engineer recorded his piano tracks, and then “Fidel” disappeared into the night.

The next day the producer listened to the songs that had been recorded and liked what he heard. He particularly liked the surprize addition of the piano to Takin’ Care of Business.

“Who played the piano?”

“The pizza delivery guy.”

“What’s his name? We need to get his sign off to use his piano track.”

Unfortunately though, no one in the band had bothered to get his name. They figured they could simply phone the pizza company and ask who the guy was who delivered to the studio last night. Unfortunately again, no one knew who the company was, all the pizza boxes were in a garbage truck heading to the dump, and the recording studio regularly ordered from multiple pizza places.

So, a band member phoned every pizza place the recording studio typically ordered from and asked a simple question, “Do you have a pizza delivery guy who looks like Fidel Castro?”

They found him. They signed him. That was the catalyst to launch him into the music career he had dreamed of.  He spent years in the music business and was Music Director for Bette Midler and Barry Manilow.

This story is a great example of a very simply business principle – “Be different or be dead.” In order to be successful in business we need to ensure that we differentiate ourselves from our competition.

“Fidel” differentiated himself in two ways: 1. He looked different. 2. He acted different – he was bold, took a risk and he could play piano well.

He was memorable. He was remarkable – he was worth talking about. This led to his success.

As leaders, if we do not differentiate ourselves from our competition you can bet that somehow our competition is going to differentiate themselves from us, and we will lose market share.

So what are you doing as a leader to differentiate your business, or your organization from your competition? How are you leading to ensure that you, the people you lead, and the product or service they create are memorable and remarkable?

There are six critical areas that leaders must address within their organizations in order to create real and valuable differentiation from their competitors:

1. Personal leadership
2. People
3. Product
4. Processes
5. Promotion
6. Pricing

It all starts with the leader’s personal leadership. Are you leading yourself well? Are you leading in a fashion that is equipping and enabling your team to lead and work well? Are you mentoring, motivating and measuring your people?

Are your people different? Anything you are producing, whether it is a product or a service, is the result of people. Are your people better because you have hired and trained them well?

What are you doing to ensure your “product” is superior to your competition’s? Your product is simply what your customers are buying from you. Are you listening to customer feedback? Have you found a need and are meeting it, or are you trying to create a need for what you have created?

What processes are in place to ensure you are more efficient and more effective than your competition, so your people can produce a superior product and a superior experience for your customers?

Is your promotion telling your story in a way that is differentiating you from your competition? Is your story accurate and compelling – it can’t be smoke and mirrors.

Does your pricing reflect good value? Fair, not gouging and not giving it away either. Don’t sell on price though – sell on value.

Clearly we can go way down the rabbit hole for each of these six areas, but let’s learn a very simple lesson from “Fidel” the piano playing pizza delivery guy – in order to be successful we must differentiate ourselves from the competition.

Be different or be dead.