All too often people come to us with the complaint that if they could just break through the clutter, come up with the right marketing angle, say the right thing, then their business or product would take off.

After a few minutes of discussion, we quickly discover that their business does the exact same thing that dozens of other businesses do. In business, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing everyone else is doing and expecting a different result.

Case in point … say you open a new pizzeria. Even small towns already have several who have been in business much longer than you and have loyal clientele, and in big cities your competitive landscape is an even larger . So whatever pizza you will make – deep dish, NY style, gourmet cracker crust – somebody else is already doing it. So why should you expect people to gravitate to your shop when your product is the same, and why would you expect them to change from eating at their old pizza haunts (remember, people hate change)?

Your problem here isn’t a marketing problem; it’s a product problem. So what do you do? Change the product and change your positioning. Make triangular pies. Deliver it in triangular boxes. Specialize in gluten-free pizzas. Create an unconventional theme for your shop. In other words, do something to differentiate yourself, to make your product something that people want to try (and then to try again). It’s a bold step, but it beats being out of business.

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