Richard Branson

My lovely event planning professionals! There are so many of you in the world, you start to ask the question, “How Do I Make Myself Stand Out?” Well I’m here to tell you about differential advantage, and what it should mean to you.

Standing out from the competition is Virgin Atlantic Airways.  I love my Richard Branson. He stands out from the competition. Whether you love him or hate him, and believe me there are plenty of customers out there who don’t like him, he has created his brand to a specific target audience.

Richard Branson stands out from the competition because he does things his way. Now I happen to think Richard Branson is a very smart business man. I think his way is also combined with what the market wants. So in his case, he’s figuring okay our planes are all going to be red and white, you’ll be able to get a massage on board on certain flights, you’re going to be able to have a bar and do all these fun things. We’re going to have Wi-Fi, etc. He really turned customer service in the airline industry upside down.

Now what happened? He’s not the low priced leader that’s for sure. It’s not how he stands out from the competition. But he stands out from the competition because you are buying back into this flying airline experience. Okay? Who else stands out from the competition? For totally different ways Southwest Airlines does. Everybody is in shorts, they’re usually young and cheerful and upbeat. They have a very casual style and they deliver. Their message is about airplane safety and they’re just quirky.

That is part of their brand and what sets them apart from the competition. So what happens? You know they’re going to be inexpensively priced, you know they’re going to be no frills, you know you can’t guarantee a seat on Southwest. But you go into it knowing it’s going to be this fun experience and you’re up for it cause you know what to expect.

And on the other side you have Virgin Atlantic which is going to be a much more, a hipper, cooler experience but again differentiated from the competition.

Now there is another company that came on board, no pun intended, Jet Blue. They said listen this is how we’re going to compete and Jet Blue was a no frills airline but they were sort of a hybrid in my opinion between Southwest and Virgin. Why? Because they were pretty inexpensive and they were no frills but then they would do some fun, fun things like Virgin did. They were one of the first ones for you to have your own personal TV set and movie screen and you could watch whatever you wanted or play games.

They set apart and said hey listen, we’re going to give you these funky snacks, you can get all the little chocolate chip cookies you want and then you’re going to have movies and what is there other differential advantage? How do they stand apart? Well you could fly out of all these different airports.

So when Jet Blue says, hey listen I’m going to take you non-stop to JFK but I’m going to do it out of Burbank, which that airport is the size of our living room then guess what? You say oh my gosh this is amazing. That sets them apart from the competition. I would rather fly coach than business class quite frankly most of the time going from Burbank to JFK. Why? Cause I don’t want to sit in that nasty security drama pain in the neck and you’re much more likely to sit on the runway at LAX, etc.

So how does this relate back to you and your event planning business? How you set yourself apart from the competition has to be just as clear. You have to have your brand and what makes you distinct has to be crystal clear. When I say crystal clear I don’t mean, by the way, crystal clear to you. It really needs to be crystal clear to everybody else out there. YOU are not buying your own service/product…the consumer is!

So get to figuring it out and clearly defining…what is your differential advantage?