Right now there are potential customers for your business trying to decide whether or not to choose you. Unfortunately, most of them can’t see much difference between you and your competition. You’ve all got good quality products or services. You all seem to have competent, helpful people. It all pretty much just looks the same. That leaves one factor to drive the decision: price.

Welcome to the commodity trap. It’s a place in which lowest price almost always wins, because customers don’t see any other difference. It’s not a place where most companies want to compete. To escape the commodity trap, you have to answer the toughest question in business: “Why should I choose you?”

From banking services and insurance products, to fast food restaurants and medical clinics, today’s buyers just don’t see much difference in their purchasing choices. Unless you want to compete on price, you have to clearly differentiate from your competition. You have to have a tiebreaker. You have to give potential customers a reason to say, “OK, that’s the difference. That makes my decision.” The good news is that you probably have one or more tiebreakers right now; you just haven’t developed them as such.

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