Differentiation Can Be a Niche Market

I remember starting may career in the late 1970's with an automotive jobber selling car parts. I enjoyed the job more for the discount on parts to work on my 1973 Camaro which was my money pit at the time. A money pit that I was very okay with...what a great looking and sounding car with the chrome side pipes that provided my peers with a great parking lot show at night spitting fire with every quick gear change. Ahh, the days of our youth. The jobber I worked for at the time was a family owned business and they were very successful for 25 years and most of the money they made went back to the family. I was just an employee but that was okay because of my Camaro.

Looking back on this company today, 30 years later, I remembered something unique and special about this two store operation, they had parts for cars that nobody else had. So many times I spoke to customers over the counter who travelled miles to our store for the rare part for that rare car that no one else had. Or because they knew from experience that no one else would have the part they started with us first. This small but successful automotive aftermarket parts business built a reputation on having in stock, sometimes with an inch of dust on it, the part you just can't get anywhere else. The company was known as Radex Automotive and at the time Radex was the jobber to beat. Even the big brand competitors could not take their market away because of customer loyalty. Radex found that their differentiation was the hard to find part. There was no science as to what unique part to stock, they just did it from 25 years of parts business experience and they were very good at it.

The question I have for you is; What are you doing to make your business unique or different or rare amongst your competition? Let me know your Unique Selling Point Proposition and how you are getting the word out to your prospects and customers?

I just added a link under this post title (or click here) to a great article published in Entrepreneur.com on Niche Marketing with some tips to follow for success.