Differentiation is the process of distinguishing products or services to make them attractive to a target audience. In short, differentiation helps “us” choose – pink or blue, regular or lite…. What happens when there’s not enough differentiation? What happens when everything is gray? The choice doesn’t matter as much.
Years of doing what “other law firms are doing” has created a lot of undifferentiated law firms. When everyone is average they begin to compete on price location and style. Are law firms ready to start acting like Walmart and Target? Or are they already there? Are they in too deep?
Prospects want law firms to tell them why they should choose them. But that’s impossible, right? Meaningful means something different to everyone. Impossible to align, so many variations among clients and practices.
This presentation suggests that law firm leaders stop focusing on differentiating their features and start differentiating around something that matters to clients. Something that will help them choose. Focus on delivering the basic category benefits –those things all clients expect from their law firms — better than anyone else….and the rest will follow.