PPAI News: McKain Compelled His Audience to See Dollars In Distinction


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PPAI News: McKain Compelled His Audience to See Dollars In Distinction

Issue: 2010jan

Scott McKain, author of Collapse of Distinction and keynote speaker at yesterday’s packed Opening General Session of The PPAI Expo in Las Vegas, challenged his audience to create an experience so compelling that their clients can’t afford to go anywhere else.

Using humor, multi-media and personal stories, McKain emphasized the importance of creating a distinction about your company that ensures your clients buy from you. He used the examples of Apple Computers, Starbucks and Evian. “While Apple has only seven percent of the total computer market, it has 90 percent of the laptop market over $1,000,” he said. “It is a category of one!”

McKain has identified a problem among businesses that tend to look the same, sound the same and offer the same products. He calls the phenomenon copycat competition. “If I perceive you have an edge, I seek to imitate you or improve just slightly upon what they are doing,” he explained. “Companies are looking too closely to what their competition is doing. Being a copycat doesn’t get it us where we want to go.” He lists copycat competition as one of the three destroyers of business.

The second destroyer is that more and tougher competition from the internet is bringing new competitors and causing businesses to get caught in a death spiral. “We cutback to save costs, to be more competitive and our competition does too,” he says. “This action essentially drives customers away.”

Third, familiarity breeds complacency—meaning customers are more likely to take you for granted. Collectively, these three create a collapse of distinction.

What customers really want is not reduced prices, it’s a compelling experience, reciprocal loyalty, differentiation, coordination, innovation and a personal focus. The critical focus should be on the person and his or her needs, not on the product being sold.

One way to create the ultimate distinction is to understand the three levels of processing, service and experience. Processing is simply the transaction—such as the typical airline flight which gets you from Point A to Point B. That experience could be increased to the next level—service—if the flight attendant had offered a hot cup of coffee. To get to the “experience” level, the airline would have added the critical elements of personalization and emotion. “That’s where new business is generated,” he said.

Download McKain’s presentation and an audio version of his book, Collapse of Distinction, now at http://ppai.scottmckain.com.

Comments (1)

1/18/2010
Scott McKain (Scott@ScottMcKain.com)
title: THANKS, PPAI!!
"It was an incredile honor to speak to PPAI and I am grateful. I just wanted to be certain to note that the term "category of one" was originated by my good friend, Joe Calloway. I mentioned that in the presentation, and wanted to be certain he gets credit for that, not me. Again -- THANKS to all at PPAI! I hope we can do it again soon!! Scott"

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