Building a brand is all about embracing change and finding a differentiation factor. What makes you different from the competition? Are you willing to innovate to adapt your brand to change? A brand’s X factor is what sets it apart from the rest, without even giving them a chance with your potential buyers. 

However, how can you find your brand’s X factor? The key is associating a performing aspect of your brand with multiple customer benefits. This blog will guide you to easily identify your brand’s X factor.

Finding The Differentiator

When it comes to branding, 2 things are important: the right thing and the consistent thing. You don’t need to find 10 things that make you different from your competitors. Focus on one and build your brand around it. 

Listen To Your Clients

A well-established brand helps you gain a competitive advantage. You can gain feedback from clients and input from your customer journey map that will help you measure:

• Why clients are moving from a competitor to you
• Where they are assessing their options
• Why did they choose you

Elevate Customer Loyalty

Your customers are your biggest fans. They can easily advocate for you and communicate your brand to others. It’s helpful to amp up that word of mouth referral, that social media virality, and that feedback in a testimonial. This way, you can find out your brand’s first impression and how this is causing (or not) retention.

Get Obsessed With Finding Your Uniqueness

Start to look at the uniqueness within your business. Find out what makes your business completely stand out and original, even when you’ve got side-by-side competitors on the main street. What makes customers decide to walk through your door and not the others?

Fall In Love With The Way You Do Business

Be passionate about the way you can use your brand to elevate above the competition. By doing that, you’re going to find that place of reinvigoration, and it’s going to challenge you in your business model. Plus, it’ll challenge the way your team delivers every single day, impressing your customers enough to come back to you and bring potential customers with them.

How Do You Know That Your Differentiator Is Working?

Are you innovating enough? Are you being original enough? To confirm that what sets your brand apart is crushing the competition, you can measure it through these results: 

• You’ve got more sales coming in the door. When you implement that differentiator and test it, you’ll decide if that was correct because you’ll have more sales.
• You have more loyalty. This can show up as having more referrals or having more revenue. This is easily tracked within your business and should be tied to your differentiator. 

You’ll know that your brand is at work and your X factor is in the right place because you’ll see these needles moving.

Cliché & Worn Out Differentiators You Must Avoid

Customers don’t value brands that sell all the same items, do the same thing, and talk the same talk. 

Here are some commonly used “differentiators” or “X factors” that are just plain generic and will bore clients away:

• “Our employees set us apart”: Of course, your employees should set your brand apart. Many companies insist on stating this, but few bring it to life. If you want to focus on your brand’s community, don’t just say it, but do it. 
• “We are trusted advisors to our clients”: This phrase is overused by CPAs, financial consultants, investment advisors, etc. Instead of saying that you’re “trusted,” let your actions show it! You’re not the one that’ll decide if your brand is reliable or not. You have to prove your point through your service. 
• “We strive for excellence and provide fantastic client service”: Again, this isn’t something you decide; this is evaluated and stated by your customers. Speak through their lens. Let their testimonies and reviews be the key to identifying your real differentiator.
• “We have a proprietary process”: Give customers a sneak peek of your process and clearly state what solution this process brings to them. People don’t care for the process as much as they care about the solution, the success, the transformation.

Stop Playing It Safe. It’s Time To Stand Out

A brand differentiator focuses on what you offer your customers or how you relate to their deeds by providing something that the competition doesn’t. Ask yourself the following:

• What makes you better than the industry average?
• What are the strengths and challenges within your industry?
• What is positive, and what is challenging?
• Where are their opportunities to grow?
• What do people expect, and what is unexpected?
• What makes you special within your culture?
• How are you? What are you working towards?

Brands that have crushed the competition understand that strategic branding goes much deeper than just image. It reflects what your customers need from you and not what you need from your customers. 

Learn what your audience wants and needs, and give it to them. Again, it may require some change. Commit to it because what will kill your branding isn’t the status quo, but inconsistency. Identifying your differentiator is key to building a beautiful, better, and bolder brand.