Small businesses looking for lessons in how to differentiate their products from competitors, can take a quick lesson from an article about small business Magnatag Visible Systems in today’s Wall St. Journal, Taking the ‘Common’ Out of ‘Commodity’ Custom Whiteboards Set Tiny Factory Apart From Generic Rivals. The company sells a highly commoditized business office product—the erasable white board.
We can all relate to the humble white board. If you’ve spent any time working in corporate America, you have (fond) memories of hours and marathon ‘brain storming’ meetings huddled around the white board.
A Magnatag whiteboard had a recurring role in early episodes of NBC’s ‘ER.’
Source:
Wall St.
Magnatag whiteboards are customized by industry and contain printed customized grids and graphics for each vertical market. The boards also include industry-specific supplies like magnets, lettering, symbols and card holders. The industries include search and rescue teams, organizations tracking large fleet of vehicles (Vehicle Service Monitor), advertising agencies, music instructors, athletic scheduling, church groups, and organizational charts (purchased recently by the White House Communications agency.
This small business owner does not view his product as a commodity. The article quotes his view of his product, “Our boards are problem-solving devices — they are aspirins for people’s headaches”.
Seth Godin is quoted "When you take a generic tool, and turn it into something that is very specifically about the need for a customer, then they will take the time to seek you out," says Godin, author of several best-selling marketing books including "Purple Cow" and most recently, "The Dip." "What most people do when they go into business is they try to fit in, and what he [Krapf] did was try to stand out."
I think this business owner/founder does an exemplary job of “walking in his customers’ shoes”. By doing so, he carves out a profitable niche for his company, sells only via his website and charges a premium. Here is link to the complete WSJ article.
Any ideas out there of how you can walk in your customers’ shoes? Any inventive (or simply workable) ideas to re-create your product specifically for your customer segments? Give me a shout out.
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