Years ago, I visited a prospective customer to promote my new business. After introductions, he invited me to take a seat, and as I did so, he exclaimed, “Well, there’s your competition”—as he pointed to a stack of brochures and other promotional materials about two feet high leaning against the side of his desk. Then he said, “So, why should I select Mark Swain’s services over all of those?” Fair question…
After university, I started my career in marketing and sales—first in the telecommunications arena, then in healthcare. I became a successful sales professional, and I was eventually promoted into a Director role, where I was over an organization’s business development efforts in five states.
I learned early on, that sales success was contingent on connecting a prospective customer’s needs/wants to our company’s “Unique Value Proposition” (UVP)—features and benefits of our product/service solution that were uniquely ours. Sales professionals learn quickly, that if there are no valued discriminators between their products/services and those of their competitors, price becomes the deciding factor, and a “How low can you go?” game ensues. This fact is why companies are forever trying to improve their products/services in unique ways that are important and desirable to potential customers. This drive for innovation and improvement creates competition among vendors and more options for buyers. “One-size-fits-all” doesn’t work very often in the marketplace.
From marketing and sales, I was recruited into the professional development business, where I delivered workshops, consulted, and coached for a number of respected companies and eventually created my own business.
Knowing how important a company’s UVP was from my marketing/sales background, I was greeted with an alarming reality when I started coaching people one on one (business, career, life). Many of those people were trying to “be” someone else rather than focusing on discovering, embracing, developing, and sharing their own uniqueness with the world. I also discovered that many of those people did not describe themselves as being particularly “successful” or “happy.”
Just this morning, I was coaching a talented young man who is between jobs and is uncertain which direction he should take his career. He asked me, “Having worked with people for all the years you have, what advice would you give me on how to live a successful and happy life?”
Drawing from my experience, I said, “Follow your heart and live your unique life fully.” His response was interesting. He said, “That really resonates with me.” I then gave him a number of exercises to work through to help him discover his uniqueness, what brings him joy, and what he most values in life.
You and I are unique in all of creation. We each have an opportunity to live a life than no one has ever lived before—and to live the highest vision of that life! What adventure could be grander than that?