In Youngme Moon’s Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd
As her example she highlights how Google went in a totally different direction than its competitors by not offering more bells and whistles, which was and is standard practice for most companies, but offered less and more at the same time. The genius of Google was not offering more options on its site like Yahoo and other search engines continued to do, but rather it gave its customers a clean, hassle-free site that offered more speed and better results when it came to search.
After reading this I began to wonder if we as workers could reverse-position brand ourselves. Everywhere I look I hear about the rising level of competition between countries, companies and even employees. I read about the high-tech skills needed to compete in the future and I watch the talking heads on TV argue about the decline of the US and its competitive advantage.
And as I consume all this I wonder what the average worker can do to separate themselves from the field and stand out like Google did in search? And these days with so many problems everywhere, so many bad attitudes and bad service everywhere, what if the best way to reverse-position brand yourself is to do what Google did and go simple (and offer more).
What if like Google you did one thing amazingly well and it was something that was in high demand? What if you built a skill that was not easily copied, learned a process that was the next big thing or mastered a procedure that made you more productive than anyone at your job? I’m not talking about learning 100 things well but dominating 1.
Doing the same work as everyone around you, at the same speed and same consistency will probably keep you above water, but won’t get you on the boat. Why not put in the time and effort to reverse-position brand yourself and see how far you can really go. The beauty of it is that with some careful consideration of your job, your company and your industry you can come up with the skill that will set you apart from the crowd and become the Google of your company.
Good luck!
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