The Ultimate 4-Step Framework to Discovering Your Competitive Advantage Using the Value Curve

As an aspiring online entrepreneur, standing out from the competition and discovering your dream clients can be challenging.

Your professional positioning is crucial to avoid losing your competitive advantage in your field.

Positioning renders your service less interchangeable.

If you're easily replaceable, you will run into problems:

• Price wars

• Diluted marketing messaging

• Changing your offer to fit what prospects want

As a designer, I've helped dozens of companies define their target audience and build a positioning around them.

But it's a different story when you try to identify your own positioning as a professional. 

Fortunately, to define your competitive advantage, there's a marketing tool that successful companies like Tesla, Netflix, and Southwest Airlines have used.

Here's how to do it in four easy steps using the Value Curve:

Step 1: Define Your Ideal Client

This is where most people (including me) start to freak out and doubt themselves.

The best way to overcome this fear is to realize that you aren't stuck to it for life and can always pivot along the way. Experimenting with this is an essential step in the journey.  

If you're struggling, study your experience to look for your ideal clients:

1. What fields excite you the most? 

2. What kind of problems are you good at solving?

4. What kinds of people do you connect better with?

3. What previous projects have you enjoyed the most?

5 . What do you know well, or what would you like to learn?

Step 2: Identify Your Competitors

To move forward, pinpoint your direct and indirect competitors targeting your audience. Then, group their key differentiators together:

• Are they the fastest in delivering results? 

• Have they got a specific geographic focus?

• Do they have exceptional client onboarding? 

Grouping your competitors' key differentiators will help you identify the gaps in the market that you can fill.

Don't overlook makeshift solutions your audience may be using.

You want to know if you are providing a solution for a problem that has already been solved.

Step 3: Create Your Value Curve

The value curve is a tool that helps you to define your competitive advantage and messaging. 

It consists of two axes: 

• The x-axis represents the factors your clients consider when choosing who to hire, the key differentiators you grouped in the previous step.

• The y-axis represents the level of performance that your competitors promise in their messaging

By plotting these factors, you can identify the areas where you can differentiate yourself from the competition.

Step 4: Refine Your Competitive Advantage

Refine your strategy by focusing on what's important to your ideal clients and where your competitors fall short.

W. Kim and R. Mauborgne, the authors of Blue Ocean Strategy, propose that you consider the following four questions:

1. Which factors are unrelated to your position and could be reduced?

2. Which factors add no value and could be eliminated?

3. Which factors are of high value and could be raised?

4. Which factors still need to be created?

Use this to create a message that highlights your unique strengths. This framework has helped me simplify my approach to positioning as an analytical person.

If only I had discovered it sooner…

The Authenticity Framework: How Digital Professionals Can Use Storytelling to Build an Engaged Social Media Audience

If you're trying to build an audience on social media, you know that being relatable and authentic is vital. The best way to achieve this is by being a clever storyteller.

I tell stories all the time, even to myself. 

However, when I put these thoughts to paper, the result is clumsy, chaotic garbage, let alone when I try to write a tweet. 

Fortunately, every now and then, I stumble upon tools that help me improve, little by little, my storytelling. 

Storyworthy, by Matthew Dicks is one of those tools. It provides a simple and effective way to structure and improve your written stories; here are my takeaways: 

Tip 1: A captivating story starts with action

Think about all the films you've seen that start with an action: Star Wars starts with a battle between spaceships and Jurassic Park with a guy being eaten by a Raptor. 

Starting with an action is like inviting the audience to take a journey with you. 

Tip 2: Stakes keep the audience engaged

People listen to stories because they want to know what happens next. What do we want to achieve? What are you risking? 

If you don't insinuate a reason to keep reading early on, you will lose your audience's attention. 

Tip 3: Surprise elicits emotions

This is a technique that many stand-up comedians use. Breaking patterns to surprise the audience will add emotion and impact to what you have to tell. 

Tip 4: Begin with the end in mind

As storytellers, we want to start in one place and end in another. We want our stories to follow a clear arc from one point to another.

It is the transformation that makes a story memorable.

Your story should begin with one idea and end with an opposite or very different idea. The easiest way to do this is by writing down the takeaway and the starting from the complete opposite. 

Tip 5: Two words that keep the flow going

"But" and "Therefore" are words that signal change and keep the attention of the audience. These two words and their synonyms act as opposites, creating a sense of momentum and change.

Remember, everyone has a story to tell  it's just a matter of finding the right way to do it.

Tired of Writer's Block? Modular Newsletters Can Help You Write Consistently and Build Your Tribe.

On Christmas last year, I published the first issue of my Newsletter.

But if soon found out writing about a specific topic for over 1,000 words was way too challenging. 

Apart from that, consistency was never my forte, so it's no surprise I quit after 3 issues. 

But last month, I attended an event by Loue Bacaj and Chris Wong in Daniel Vassallo's Small Bets community. 

It was a total game-changer.

If you're looking for a solution that allows you to write consistently. This is for you: 

What's a modular newsletter

Instead of writing about a single topic, modular newsletters are broken down into smaller, more manageable sections, making it easier to write consistently. 

The twist is these modules don't need to be related; you can write about: 

• Your field of expertise 

• An update on your journey 

• What you're passionate about

• A curated list of content you consume

Facing a blank page will no longer be a problem if you follow your intuition.

Modular Newsletters Simplify Research

Writing long-form content often requires extensive research on a single topic, which can be time-consuming. 

Modular newsletters follow your experiences and what already piques your interest, making the research enjoyable. 

Modular Newsletters are a way to attract your tribe.

Your ideal audience is going to be comprised of people that are very similar to you.

By reframing your Newsletter this way, you attract people that vibe with your message, interests, and expertise.

Modular Newsletters are a way to find your voice. 

When you have a solid body of work, you can look back and "connect the dots" to reframe your personal brand and ideate new products and angles for your offering. 

Modular newsletters can help you overcome writer's block, write consistently, and build a loyal audience that shares your interests.

If you have been procrastinating on starting a newsletter, I would give it a go. 

Take care, 

Elias