Defining what makes you remarkable
If you have read through these examples and you think that your business, or idea, could happily sit alongside them as a truly remarkable vegan company then excellent! Please, genuinely, get in touch with me so that I can add you as a case study! However, the first thing I will ask you is ‘but don’t your competition say that?’
You can’t be remarkable just by giving better customer service than everyone else. Unless you genuinely go and pick your customers up in a limo and drive them to every meeting with you, just answering emails quicker and being available on the phone is not a point of difference.
You can’t be remarkable just by selling cheaper than everyone else. Unless your market is known for being very high-priced and you have worked out a way to make a company that can deliver the same product without going bust at half the price of everyone else, just selling at a lower price is not a point of difference.
You can’t be remarkable just by making a product that you think is better than everyone else. Unless it is, genuinely, 100 times better. Something just ‘being better’ isn’t enough for someone to ditch what they currently have and buy from you instead. It needs to be so much better that it makes what they are using at the moment completely redundant and not fit for purpose by comparison – and you need to be able to prove that to them in 10 seconds, not through a 20 minute pitch.
You also can’t be remarkable if a customer doesn’t care. Yes, you might be the only vegan chocolate company where all the employees have beards, that’s a great ‘thing’ to get some social media laughs out of, but compare that to MooFree chocolate who have a policy to employ people who have difficulties finding employment and 20% of their workforce are people with autism. THAT is remarkable.
For some, I know this is going to be hard. But it’s worth the pain. Because if you cannot write down something that is genuinely remarkable about your business or idea, then everything from here on in will be an uphill struggle. You will have to fight not just to win each new customer, but also to keep them. If you don’t have anything remarkable about your company other than just being vegan, then someone will do it better, someone will do it cheaper or someone will come along and do it bigger with a lot more money to throw at it than you have.
All the companies I’ve talked about are remarkable in some way, in the true definition of the word: you have to remark on them, you have to tell others. Each company is one that I have told many people about, I have used them myself (or interviewed them about why they have a remarkable business) and then told even more people once I got to understand even better. The more I learnt about them, the more remarkable they got.
Exercise: defining what makes your business remarkable.
I would love to give you an easy list of remarkable things to choose from, but this needs to be unique to your company. Although I have given you lots of examples to get your mind turning over, the hard work is up to you. Use the case studies and the series of questions below to work out how you can create a remarkable company. Don’t just stick to the vegan market for inspiration, look at who you spend your money with and why. Compare Netflix giving you all the entertainment you need for a single subscription with how you used to buy movies and box sets individually. What can you learn from that? Think about how Amazon’s Kindle beat Waterstones by delivering a product in a more convenient way (and ao.com beat Currys and Comet by better giving better information to customers). What comparisons can you make with what you do?
- What problems can my product solve for customers that others are not yet solving? (eg Bloom & Wild)
- What different way could I sell my product which is going to make customers more likely to buy? (eg Tropic Skincare or Tupperware)
- How can I charge my customers in a different way that will suit them better? (eg Netflix’s subscription model, or in instalments, or even completely free to the customer somehow)
- What mission can I launch at the heart of my company that my customers will support me for? (eg Kings Grooming)
- In what ways can I prove to my customers that I understand them better than anyone else? (eg Peasholm Park Vegan B&B)
- In what ways can I create a product or service that others will really struggle to copy? (eg Cottonsafe Natural Mattresses)
- How can I create a unique product that people will not be able to get elsewhere? (eg Mummy Meagz Chuckie Egg)
- What is my completely unique story about how or why I set up this business? (eg The Vegan Taxidermist)
Take time over this exercise. You might even put everything on pause while you re-evaluate your business model. In the introduction I said it was your duty to run a successful vegan business to further help the cause, and in return I take it as my duty to challenge you now if you cannot come up with something that makes your business truly remarkable. If you can create a remarkable company then you don’t need to rely on discounts, or gimmicks, or high-pressure marketing techniques to find new customers. And as a business owner or marketer, your life will be so much easier. But remember, it doesn’t have to be your actual product which is remarkable. You might make vegan sweets, just like hundreds of other companies, but you can still disrupt your corner of the market by understanding what your customer wants and approaching it in a completely different way. Remember that the world’s biggest taxi company owns no cars (Uber). The world’s biggest accommodation provider own no hotels (Airbnb). Both of these companies were unheard of 10 years ago.
