Often a very small twist or tweak can turn an ordinary business into a unique, extraordinary one.

Very often it’s the basics – customer service (Nordstrom in the USA, sometimes Waitrose in the UK) is often a really basic method that’s overlooked far too often.

A simple test is to step back from the market you’re in and ask yourself what you’d personally like to receive as a customer.

That’s what programs like AirBnB and Uber have done.

Then work on making that happen.

As usual, the 80/20 rule applies here.

Go for the things that will make a big difference first. Because they’re the ones your customers will notice and will get most benefit from.

Pay attention to that last part of the sentence.

The things your customers get most benefit from are the things they’ll be happiest to purchase from you.

Often people will pay more for time saving.

They do that with food – ready meals, pre-cooked pasta or rice, pre-prepared fruit and vegetables, that kind of thing.

If you can find a way to pre-package your products and services in a way that save your customers time, there’s a good chance they’ll pay a premium for that.

In the process, you’ll have turned something ordinary into something unique. Which means you’ll have your “unique selling point” and can use that to your advantage.

This post was sparked by a product I’ve just promoted to my list.

Depending on when you’re reading this, it may or may not still be available – the person selling it tends to sell things like this in short bursts and then remove them from the market.

But whether or not it’s still available, the essence of it was:

• Buy a pre-recorded batch of audios (50 of them in total)
• Get a pre-written sales page
• Add your own twist to turn what was already a good program into one that’s unique to you

Or you could just use it to coach yourself – still very good value for money.

Which is something else you should always be conscious of.

Except at the top of the market, value for money is on people’s radar.

Often not top of their list but certainly one of the considerations they use when making a purchase.

In fact, if you think about a lot of the purchases you make, price isn’t the number one consideration.

Sure, it comes in to the buying equation.

After all, you’ve got to be able to afford it.

And if two products appear to be identical, it can clinch the deal.

Which is why there are so many offers for products everywhere you turn.

But all that disappears if you can turn your product or service from something ordinary into something unique.

You’ll know your business better than I do but here are some thoughts that you can use:

• The personal touch – it may be that people are prepared to pay a bit more to have access to a real person. That could even turn into a lot more money if what you’re offering is effectively personal coaching rather than something generic.
• The impersonal touch – some people prefer to have less interaction with people. Self service tills at banks and supermarkets are a good example of this. If you can cut costs this way and some of your customers are happy for that to happen, experiment with it.
• Added value – this comes in many forms. On the internet, it can be bonus items that are bundled with the main product, it can be time limited offers, it could be a free webinar, it could be access to a closed door, invitation only, Facebook group.
• Exclusivity – those private Facebook groups, membership of a club, VIP lounges, a first class option, queue jumping (budget airlines here in Europe seem to use that a lot), anything you can use to make your product less ordinary, more desirable and that warrants an extra price.
• Truly unique products – sites like Etsy thrive on selling handmade products that aren’t mass produced. Some may be close to being mass produced, others less so. But you may be able to do something similar in your market.
• Personalised products – even Coca Cola have managed to do this! Granted they didn’t manage to put everyone’s name on a product but they managed a lot of them. If you can work out a way to personalise your products for people then that’s often a lot more valuable. Even if it’s just offering a Skype chat or email responses it can help set you apart from the competition.

The trick with all this is to take something that is regular and apply a few simple tweaks to it so that it stands out from the crowd.

You may not get it totally right the first few times you try – that’s perfectly normal – but you’ll almost certainly get feedback from your customers and can use that feedback to improve things over the coming weeks and months,

Since so many people try to take the short cut route of using things as supplied you’ll find that you have surprisingly little competition once you start doing this.

You’ll also find that people start talking about you more because you’re adding value to the things they buy from you.

If you’ve got any comments you’d like to share on this, feel free to use the comments box below.