Pick Your Pond

Are there so many competitors in your marketplace that you find it difficult to cut through the noise?

In this Vlog, grant explains that you have got to ‘pick the right pond’.

One of the questions that I get asked the most, is how do I cut through the noise?

There’s so many competitors in my marketplace.

There’s so much marketing communications and content online.

How do I get through, so I get notice by my customers?

So I always say to people, you have to pick your pond. You have to ask yourself two questions; What do I do, and Who do I do it for? And who you do it for is the pond in which you swim.

In order to cut through, you need to ensure that you’re a big fish in a small pond and as your company grows, you can afford to make the pond bigger. Where you can be clever though, is you get to pick the pond.

What so many companies do – which is just wrong – is they jump into the pond in which everybody else is swimming, and then it’s very hard to be distinctive and stand out.

Back in the day, SAAB were an unknown brand in Norway. Rather than swim in the same pond as everybody else, SAAB positioned themselves as the winter car. Obviously the narrative made sense because they are manufactured in Sweden, which also experienced harsh winters.

Three years later, SAAB went from being an unknown brand, to winning ‘Winter car of the year’ in Norway. By picking the right pond, SAAB made itself distinctive, even though the car itself wouldn’t necessarily have stood out.

So if you want to cut through the noise, think about the way you can strategically carve up the market – by picking the right pond and ensuring it’s small enough that you can stand out.