Your Four Competitive Advantages

This article is not about your positioning, which should be truly unique to you versus other firms in your category. I’ve covered that in great detail in this look at the Waterfall of Differentiation, where you try to put competitive distance between your firm and the other firms in the same category. The simple test for whether you’ve landed on something that will actually work is easily summed up in this question: “If I withheld my services from this potential client, how long would it take them to find what they deem to be a suitable substitute for my services?” And “they” is italicized because they get to define that, not you.

The answer, if they are fair about it, should lead to them to a half dozen other firms from which they can choose.

Inhouse = Specialized

But this article isn’t about that. It’s more about how nearly every independent firm in the comms and marketing and advertising and digital and public relations space, as an entire group, is distinct from an inhouse department (sometimes known as client-side departments).

In other words, why do they hire you instead of building out their own capacity? Some do, too, and in fact 80% of companies have some sort of internal capability. Some people will say that an internal department saves money, but that’s largely nonsense. I’ve authored those studies myself and there’s no cost savings to be had. No, the best reason to build a department is the same specialization question: we are creating a mix of professionals that know our space exceedingly well. All the other things that are also true of that department (like accessibility) usually work against them and not for them.

So back to the question: why do companies—even the ones with internal departments—use firms like yours? There are four eternal reasons, and it’s good to keep these in your back pocket when you are pitching your services. Some of these you can talk about directly and some you should never mention, just because, even if they are absolutely true.

Your Four Unique Advantages

The really healthy independent firms like yours compete on a combination of these four things. You do many things that overlap with what your client is capable of, if they have an in-house department, but they do not have any of these four things, usually:

• People working for them that would never be caught dead working on the client side. These are your secret weapon. The misfits and rogues who are unquestionably brilliant (and difficult to manage sometimes, too). The only way your client has access to them is via a firm like yours or in a contractor/freelance relationship.
• External objectivity. They aren’t so close to the situation that they can’t see things. And when you see things, you have the courage to call them out, kindly. You do have that courage, right?
• Nimbleness without tons of layers and procedures. Yes, you do need process at your firm, but never let it start looking like your client’s process. Start a project the very same day, put the whole team into a “quick react” mode when something happens, etc. If you charge enough, this shouldn’t be burdensome.
• Pattern matching from seeing many situations like theirs, assuming here that your positioning takes advantage of this and that you aren’t a generalist firm. The client will have multiple people who have been at one or two other places, but your collective history has seen 40 or 75 of these.

Other than your specialization, which should lead conversations, always keep these four in mind, too. If you’re talking about other stuff, it should be secondary to these four.