If we take a cue from something that we know about marketing, we have to differentiate. If we take that to the extreme and see we will never be able to outdo somebody else at their own game, I can't out-George you, I can't out-Seth-Godin Seth Godin. In the same way, if we can identify what exactly are those qualities that are different not just for the sake of being different, but they're different because they're intensely valuable to a specific target audience.

Let's take a team example during COVID. People who had a great sense of humor sitting around the status room table pre-COVID had a competitive advantage in that they could engage and they could people to remember through humor. Then when we had to quarantine, humor had a completely different role. It wasn't enough just to be funny. You have to be able to take that attribute about yourself and pivot it. With humor, a way to pivot that is you can see something from a different perspective. Humor is about irony and friction.

If you're able to take a look at a situation and bring a fresh perspective on it, that's a way that you can take a quality that makes you different and valuable in one circumstance that becomes a completely different attribute in a different circumstance for a different target audience.

[00:10:40]

George B. Thomas Can you take your difference and turn it into your superpower in different situations and for different audiences in your life? I'm gonna ask that again. Can you take your differences and turn it into your superpower in different situations and for different audiences in your life?

I sure think. But the real question is, Do you, what are your thoughts so far about this topic? Let us know by using the hashtag #mpb2b. Now we'll get back to Sally and her thoughts on different is better than better, but I have to ask, Are you part of the Marketing Pro community? Free community? By the way, if not, become part of the marketing process community by heading over to mprofs.com/mptoday.

Now it's time for In the B2B News, where we talk about breaking B2B news or really important tips we find on the Google News tab related to you and your B2B business. A fun little side note, this week when I searched B2B marketing on the news tab of Google News tab of Google, the first was our latest interview with Pam Didner, so make sure you check that Bad Boy out. It'll be a future live show, but the podcast episode is live now. However, today's In the News section is actually How to Use Buyer Reviews in B2B Marketing by Christina Kearney. It comes to us from the plethora of MarketingProfs articles.

That's right. It was in that top section of B2B marketing in the Google News tab. Now, this one jumped off the page to me because I truly believe when we focus on being different, your audience will leave reviews and testimonials at a faster pace. But how can you then leverage those reviews to their maximum advantage for your ROI?

That's where this useful article comes into play, you'll learn five ways to use your buyer reviews in your B2B marketing moving forward. And I have to ask, Are you using your reviews currently in the right ways? Hey, the link will be in the description once this live show is over. That's right, all the right links in all the right places at just the right time.

So let's get back to Sally and her Marketing Smarts podcast episode. Now, I wanted to dig in deeper into this conversation of different and better. I wanted to know just a couple of things. Just a couple of things, and that is: what should we be thinking of, and what should we be leveraging? That's right. When you think about this conversation of different and better breaking the two apart, what should we be thinking of and what should we be leveraging and here? Ladies and gentlemen, here is what Sally had to say about those things.

Sally Hogshead: Just being the best is demoralizing because it's automatically putting the control in somebody outside of you because you're the best as evaluated by them. That's why it's so brittle. You come up with a shiny technology, I'll come up with a shinier one. You come up with a price cut, I'm going to price cut you lower. It's always on a straight linear line going up and down. Think of it like, it's a ladder going up. Different, on the other hand, is not as predictable. It's a curvy horizontal line, if you can imagine. Your success is not guaranteed, but no longer is your success guaranteed with better.

When we go on this journey of different and we begin looking at ourselves and we think what are the most strategically polarizing things about ourselves... For me, I have a huge competitive disadvantage; my last name is Hogshead. Think about what that was like growing up on the playground. Nobody would ask for that. As my mom told me, it's the thing about our name that makes it different that will one day make you love it. And it's true. There are certain things about having a polarizing brand like the last name Hogshead that even when I got married, I kept my last name. Like many things that are highly differentiated, it's memorable, it's ownable, and it's easy to build an identity around that.

George B. Thomas Did you hear Sally say polarizing, but in a good way?

When you have something that's different? And I love exactly how Sally said this. I mean, she said it perfectly it's ownable, it's memorable, and it's easy to build an identity around. Are you able to take your difference and own it, make it memorable, and build an identity around it? That's the question that you should be asking yourself right now.

I hope that you see how focusing on being better is not a viable solution in the world we live in today. Sure, you wanna try to always get better, but getting better in the lane of also leveraging your difference will put you in a magical place. Again, we'll get back to Sally in a few minutes where we dive into the questions centered around fixing and optimized versus open-ended opportunities.

We also get Sally to share a great example with us around this conversation. But first, it's time for some dope B2B learnings from the vault of MarketingProfs articles. That's right. It's time to dig into the treasure trove of valuable information and pull out two pieces of gold to help you be a better B2B marketer.

Article one this week is, Will Sears Be More Like Target Than Kmart by Kathy Halligan. Yep. You guessed. As my brain often works when I'm deep in thinking of different versus better, I also tie it to different versus the same, and so this article title screamed the Sea of Sameness, jumped out to me. Take a gander and see what tips you can glean for your own B2B marketing.

Article two for this week's episode is Back to Me: Why You Should Talk About Yourself by Claudia Temple. I'll let you read the full article, but let me just dive into a small section of this to whet your appetite. Visitors are often more curious about the folks behind the site rather than the technology or the mission. Why? Because people do business with other people. Human to human, not companies, corporations, or websites. Buying a CD or umbrella from a website can save the customer time. And aggravation. More often than not, we hope. But the real relationship is built between the customer and his or her perception of who is handling the transaction at their or your end.

Every time you deliver at a customer touchpoint, trust grows. Let me repeat that. Every time you deliver at a customer touchpoint, trust grows and the likelihood of a loyal relationship increases. keywords there, trust and loyal relationships, that as marketers, as B2B marketers, what we could be is, is what we could be focusing on now. Learn more after the broadcast, and to read both articles in full head to the links located in the description below. Yes, I'm gonna say it maybe for the last time today. All the right links in all the right places. At just the right time.

All right. You know what you wanna do? You wanna get back to Sally? So back to Sally. Let's dive back into the conversation of different and better as well as learn about a great example of how you can leverage your difference to not only be different, but different with a purpose.

Sally shares a great branding example where a product pivoted in their difference. And here's what Sally had to share. I, I love this. Just to be honest with you all.

Sally Hogshead: Well, a n easy way to think about it is no kid ever came home crying from school saying, "Mommy, the kids are teasing me, they say I'm better." Better is the approval of other people according to a metric that they have established. It's like the most improved award. Better means you weren't good enough to begin with. Better means that there is something wrong that you have to fix or optimize. Different, on the other hand, gives you an open-ended opportunity to explore the different options. Instead of having this mine-slogging, ditch-digging, gradual improvement, you have quantum leaps.

This is why different is a risk. You can't be different just to be different. You have to identify what's the situation, a target audience, a purpose or an unfulfilled need that you can solve with your point of difference. For example, let's borrow something from branding. When electricity was invented and people stopped using their coal stoves, there was a product that was in danger of becoming irrelevant.

The product cleans the soot off of the walls, and it had a very distinctive scent. When there was no more soot on the walls, there was no more of this product. The product pivoted and reinvented with a totally different target audience without changing the product. That product became Play-Doh. Play-Doh started as a household cleaning agent. They kept the scent the exact same. When their market opportunity dried up because nobody had soot, then positioning it as a child's toy, which ironically gets stuck in the carpets, is one way of saying don't change who you are.

George B. Thomas O M G, you have to become more of who you are. You don't have to change, you don't have to change people. You just have to become more of who you are. OK, I don't know about you, but I am totally down for that journey. Totally down for that journey. And maybe it's because I have the two-part series under my belt or just because that's how I'm built. But are you wondering, just like me, How can I become more of who I am? More of who you are? I hope so, because that's what I asked next. Yeah. I mean, I really leaned into this and guess what Sally answered, and let's see what she had to say.

Sally Hogshead: The first part is to identify a difference that is highly differentiated and polarizing in certain situations that you may have been told growing up that it was something that you needed to fix. Second, identify how that is an advantage. For a lot of people in marketing, like me, I'm intensely creative. That means I'm able to come up with ideas really quickly, but I have difficulty with structure, I have difficulty with intricate directions, and staying on task over time. It's up to me to know, as a creative thinker, I shouldn't put myself in situations in which I'm going to be evaluated according to my ability to simply replicate and crank out the same thing, identical, over and over again. I could do it, but it would be exhausting, it would feel like quicksand. Instead, what I need to do is to find what are the situations and people in which creativity is not only a benefit but is absolutely essential. Then I have to take that creativity and make sure that I am responsible for over delivering in that one area, because that's how I'm going to give value.

George B. Thomas Oh, and it's all about giving value, and all of those sound like great ways to get started.

Now, we're gonna get some words of wisdom from Sally here in a few minutes, but right now it's time to turn the spotlight on you, the MarketingProfs community--you know, the people that I love, why I do this. Yep. It's time for From the B2B community. We searched far and wide in the hashtag MPB2B universe to find amazing information and conversations to bring to the masses. That's you. So first. Make sure you're using the stinking hashtag. And second, make sure you have fun and add value to the community.

Then we'll spotlight you or your crew on the show. This week, it's Katie Martel or @katiemartel on Twitter. Yes, I was on the Twitters for this one. Her tweet that caught my eye was No Marketer means to exclude anyone in our target audience. #accessibility is part of being inclusive. I teamed up with @PerkinsAccess and @MarketingProfs #mpb2b.

There it is to share, five ways to make your #marketing more accessible. Now watch our keynote on demand, and of course, the link is in the show notes that you can watch after this live broadcast is over. And thank you Katie Martel for using the hashtag. Hey, are you gonna be the next to get the spotlight?

Remember community. Use that hashtag #mpB2B on Facebook, LinkedIn, and/or Twitter, and get the light shined on your awesomeness in the next episode or a future episode of the Marketing Smarts Live Show. Pro tip, it won't hurt if you tag me into your post as well. And I'm @GeorgeBThomas on LinkedIn and Twitter.

So I love to end the podcast and I love to kind of wrap up these live shows with some words of wisdom. Look, we've all gone through a lot. We've all helped people through those types of journeys, and so words of wisdom can really impact and give us kind of next steps. So we're gonna kick it back to Sally and some awesome words of wisdom around this topic of different is better than better.

Sally Hogshead:

The greatest way to empower somebody is to help them identify who they already are and then reward them for what they're doing. The greatest way to kill somebody's spirit is to show them what they're doing wrong and tell them how to fix it. So remember this: You don't have to change anything. You are not perfect for everything. You are not perfect for everyone. But you are extraordinary at the right time with the right people, and that is how to reach your ideal potential by being different.

George B. Thomas Can I get an amen on that? The greatest way to empower somebody is to help them identify who they already are and reward them for what they're doing, right?

I have to ask, are you empowering yourself? Are you empowering others? Are you reaching your ideal potential by being different? Have you enjoyed today's journey? Let us know. Use that hashtag #mPb2b. Head to the description below. Click on the link in the full Marketing Smarts Podcast with Sally Hogshead, and keep on learning more about how to reach your full potential.

Remember, these were just a few clips from the original Marketing Smarts Podcast interview that, by the way, was sponsored by Mountain and Terminus. If you got value of today's show, hit that. Better yet, share it with a friend and to keep learning more, hit that subscribe or watch additional MarketingProfs videos or articles depending on where you are.

Or go tune in to the original Marketing Smarts podcast episodes on your favorite podcast app. Don't forget to become part of the MarketingProfs community by heading over to mprofs.com/mptoday. Don't forget to check out the B2B forum with 49 speakers. Bunch of keynotes. I'll be on stage. A bunch of shenanigans.

And as always, as I close this out and land a plane, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble B2B marketing human. And we'll see you on the next episode of the Marketing Smarts live show next week. Enjoy everybody. It's been my pleasure.