Standing Out in a Crowd

Episode 83: Standing Out in a Crowd, with Mark Levy

Standing out in a crowd. If your agency applies the principles from this episode — you’ll be better at standing out in a crowd.

I am thrilled to welcome our special guest expert to this episode of Sell With Authority, Mark Levy. Mark is the Founder of Levy Innovation and has an impressive track record of helping clients break free from the sea of sameness.

He’s done it over 25,000 times for prominent figures like Simon Sinek, heads of divisions within two different White House administrations, the Strategy unit of the Harvard Business School, the CEO of Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen, and even individuals associated with Major League Baseball who have spoken at the United Nations.

I invited Mark to join us today because he’s a true expert in solving a chronic problem that many agencies and consulting firms face — the challenge of standing out in a crowded market. Mark understands that even though you and your team might be branding, demand generation, or PR experts when it comes to showcasing your own uniqueness, it can feel like you’re the cobbler’s kids.

Standing out in a crowd is the key to success, strategically showcasing your unique qualities in a sea of competitors to capture attention and gain recognition. Candidly, one of the most effective ways to attract a steady stream of right-fit clients into your sales pipeline is to stake your claim, own the ground you’re standing on, and, most importantly, stop sounding like everyone else.

Mark and I focus on how to pick the right story to tell and strategies for standing out in a crowd — because by telling it — you step away from the sea of sameness in a real and differentiated way.

What you will learn in this episode is about standing out in a crowd:

• Why agencies and consulting firms excel at helping clients but struggle to differentiate themselves
• The common challenges that agencies face when being stuck in the sea of sameness
• Standing out in a crowd is the key to attracting right-fit clients
• How agencies can distinguish themselves authentically
• How to artistically select the perfect narrative to set your agency apart

Resources:

• Website: https://www.levyinnovation.com/
• Learn more about standing out in a crowd by tuning in to this virtual event by Mark Levy: How to Differentiate Your Company — Even If You’re in a Hard-to-Differentiate Industry
• Explore effective techniques for standing out in a crowd and discover Mark’s insights here.
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/levyinnovation/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/LevyInnovation

November Intensive

We’re getting our Predictive ROI clients together for our next 2-day Intensive on Wednesday & Thursday, November 15th & 16th, from 8:30 a.m. to 12 noon Central on Zoom.

It’s a private client-only event designed to help everyone in the room move their businesses further faster.

Would you like to join us?

Just email Stephen (Stephen at Predictiveroi.com) with the word “ONWARD,” and we’ll be in touch with the full details, calendar invites, and Zoom links.

Additional Resources:

• Website: www.predictiveroi.com
• Visit our newly expanded Resource Library
• Join us in our free How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline Facebook Group

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: Full Episode Transcript

 

Welcome to the Sell with Authority podcast. I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI, and my team and I created this podcast specifically for you. So if you’re an agency owner or a strategic consultant, and you’re looking to fill your sales pipeline with a steady stream of right-fit prospects and get the at-bats that you need, the high-quality leads that you need in order to build and scale, well, then you’re in the right place. You want proven strategies for becoming the known expert in your niche and attracting all the clients that you need. Yep. We’re gonna cover that. You wanna learn how to step away from the sea of sameness so you actually stand out and own the ground you’re standing on. Yep. We’re gonna cover that too. Do you want to prove your business in the future so you can successfully navigate the next challenge that you know is going to come your way?

 

Well, absolutely. We will help you there as well. I promise you each episode of this podcast will contain valuable insights, tangible examples, and best practices, never theory, from thought leaders, experts, and owners who have done exactly what you’re working hard to do. So, I want you to think practical and tactical. Never any fluff. Each of our guests has built a position of authority and then monetized that position by growing their audience, nurturing leads, and, yes, converting sales. But all the while, they did it by being helpful. So every time someone from their audience turned around there, they were with a helpful answer to an important question. So their RightFit prospects never ever felt like they were a prospect. I also promise you every strategy that we discuss and every tool we recommend will be shared in full transparency in each episode so you can become the known expert in your niche, fill your sales pipeline with a steady stream of RightFit clients, and again, who are never ever made to feel like one of your prospects.

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to this virtual event by Mark Levy: How to Differentiate Your Company — Even If You’re in a Hard-to-Differentiate Industry

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: Marky Levy’s Introduction

 

Okay. So I am super excited for you to meet our very special guest expert today, Mark Levy, if you’re meeting Mark for the first time, he’s the founder of Levy Innovation and a differentiation expert who has done this work over 25,000 times for clients such as Simon Sinek, who’s renowned for his book, Start With Why, as well as heads of divisions within two different White House administrations, the strategy unit of the Harvard Business School, the CEO of Popeye’s, Louisiana Kitchen, David Merman Scott, who authored the New Rules of Marketing, pr, and individuals who have spoken at the United Nations and are associated with Major League Baseball. There is quite a list. I also asked Mark to join me on the podcast because I was super excited to get his expertise around what is, in my opinion, a chronic problem for agencies and consulting firms. And that is being stuck in the sea of sameness.

 

And I get the irony: you and your team might be branding experts, demand gen experts, or PR experts, and you consistently crush results for your clients over and over again. But when it comes time to do that for yourselves, I often hear things like, well, you know, we’re the cobbler’s kids, or you know, we’ve lost this strategic seat at our client’s table, and we’re treated like a vendor. Or, when I’m at a workshop or a seminar and the facilitator goes around the room and asks each person to stand up and introduce themselves, and how their agency is positioned in their market, I will tell you that the majority of agency introductions sound like this. Hi, I’m Tom Smith and of 1 2 3 Awesomeness, and we’re an integrated full-service advertising and marketing agency with deep experience in branding, design, web, PR, media, and everything. A client needs to be successful.

 

Standing Out in a Crowd — And when your prospects hear an introduction like that, they cannot possibly understand all the brilliant ways you’re different. And Mark is going to help change that. Candidly, one of the ways to attract a steady stream of RightFit clients into your sales pipeline is to own the ground you’re standing on and do that, or you do that by stopping sounding like everyone else. Then your RightFit clients can see and hear and feel how you’re different and why you and your team give a rip about the success of their business. So, let’s raise the bar in how we differentiate ourselves. So, to help us do just that, Mark and I are going to focus our time and attention on how to pick the right story to tell. And then, by telling it in the right way, you step away from the sea of sameness in a real and differentiated way. I promise you that if you take and apply the insights and wisdom Mark shares with you during this conversation, you will be in a wonderful position to roar into 2024. So, without further ado, welcome to the Sell with Authority podcast, Mark.

 

Thank you so much.

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to Our “Seed & Open Loops” Framework

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: Mastering the Art of Sales

 

I’m grateful to have you here, my friend. So thank you for saying yes,  and being so generous and sharing your smarts.  Obviously, I shared the list of esteemed clients in organizations that you’ve worked alongside over the years.  but I know there’s more to the story. So, take us behind the curtain here just for a couple of minutes and share a little bit more about context, or excuse me, like path and journey and, and then we’ll dive in,  with what I’m sure is gonna feel like a barrage of questions coming your way.

 

Standing Out in a Crowd — There are two things that are interesting to know about my background. Okay. One is that you talked about that 25,000-plus times. So where that idea comes from is, before I did this work, I was the director of special projects for the third largest book wholesaler in the world.  We used to buy millions of dollars worth of books from publishers like Random House and Simon and Schuster, and then we’d sell them to independent bookstores, chain bookstores, and buying offices. And so I helped that company sell over a billion dollars worth of books during my time there. Hmm. And so, by the way, books are a commodity. Like the new Stephen King book that I had, 10,000 copies were the same Stephen King book that my clients and my competitors would have. But I still sold so many.

 

And the way I would do that,   without going into details now, is it was phone sales. So I’d have to pick up the phone and begin the conversation with no money, and I would’ve to end it with $200 or $2,000 or $20,000. And I did that over the course of 14 years. And when you do that, when you have to do that, and your whole life is made from such a thing, you get very good at understanding what gets people to say yes. What gets them to say no, what attracts their attention, what pushes their attention away? You have to be very creative and understand what’s happening out in the world that might affect the cells that you’re doing with them right now. So you may need to alter things. So I got to be really good at that from, it’s not like I’m so talented.

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to Our “Seed & Open Loops” Framework

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: Lessons from Selling Billions and Performing Tricks

 

Standing Out in a Crowd — It’s when you do something 25,000 plus times with the audience directly in front of you on the other end of the phone, and you learn a few things. So that’s one thing. And,  the other thing very quickly is that I have a background as a magician, as you see a poster from a show that I co-created. So I’ve created magic tricks and shows that have been on network TV, the highest-rated live show in New York City on TripAdvisor Chamber. Magic is a show I co-created 23 years ago. It’s actually rated higher than even Hamilton. And so when you’re a magician, so I, right, I create shows and tricks. And when you’re a magician, you know, a few things about how, about drama, about dramatizing an idea or an object or a person. And so one of the things that’s super important, there are a lot of lessons I can draw from being a magician, but one of the things that’s super important that no one gets is that if you’re going to be differentiating your business, I would argue 100% of the time that when people try it on their own, they stay far too close to linear, everyday common logic.

 

Standing Out in a Crowd — And so when you are stuck too close to everyday logic, your solutions, or everyday solutions, there are only one or two percentage points to the right or left of what already exists. So you’re not really standing out, Mm-Hmm. You’re kind of stuck in that sea of sameness, as you say. So when you’re a magician, though, you understand that sometimes illogic is actually what gets attention and makes people excited. And,  a colleague of mine, Rory Sutherland, who’s a very prominent marketeer in the UK, he’s the head of a division of Ogilvy Rory, in one of his books, actually writes about this, this, the importance of illogic in coming up with an idea for your business or your point of differentiation. He essentially says that if you are too logical, then it makes you too predictable, and it makes you easy to hack.

 

Like, it is very easy for people to go around you or to know what you’re going to do or to ignore you. ’cause they assume they know what it is you’re going to say, like, you’re super easy to ignore, to go around and to hack. And by the way, Rory says, one of the key things that makes these super entrepreneurs so important is people like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, James Dyson of the vacuum, and so forth.  what makes them super important is that they often use logic that wouldn’t be approved of by a committee. Mm-Hmm. That, so no one ever asked, they didn’t say, I want a very expensive, complicated vacuum. No one asked James Dyson to do that. He did it on his own. Yep. No one said I want an encyclopedia that’s 3 million pages long.

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to Our “Seed & Open Loops” Framework

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: Thinking Outside the Logic Box

 

That is written by non-experts. And as a matter of fact, the experts don’t get paid. And that became Wikipedia. It was not being asked. So you often need to go against what is, I’ll give you a, another,  version of this. Okay. So years ago, I forget if it was in Central America or South America, but there was a soft drink company that wanted to create a drink that rivaled Coca-Cola for dominance in the marketplace. And so they went to a marketing firm that actually dealt with soft drinks, and they said, here’s our drink that we wanna promote. And we don’t have a name for it or anything yet, but this is the drink. And so do some market research. ’cause we wanna know how to position it. So, the marketeer went out with the salt drink, did blind taste tests, and so forth, and then came back and gave the results.

 

And the marketing firm said, of all the products we’ve ever done in all our years in business, your drink came out worst. We have never had a product that was so hated. As a matter of fact, the most common word associated with your product when we had people try it was it’s disgusting. Wow. That was common. And so the drink company knew they needed to do something different. So they decided to create a new category for their drink. ’cause they couldn’t compete in the soft drink category. So, they called it an energy drink. They named it Red Bull.

 

I figured that’s where you were going with that.

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to Our “Seed & Open Loops” Framework

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: The Red Bull Story and the Power of Nontraditional Thinking

 

Standing Out in a Crowd — Right. They put it in tiny little cans to denote explosiveness. Yeah. Like all this caffeine and hard-to-crush cans and, you know, all these things. They started to sponsor extreme sports, extreme sky skydiving from outer space, cliff diving, and all these things. And they became this gigantic force. And it’s because they didn’t use the common logic. It’s like, how could you sell a drink that tastes disgusting? Well, you sell it for what it is. You make a new category; you do whatever.

 

I’ve heard people answer, and I’ve heard and read quotes from people like executives or whatever at Red Bull who acknowledge that the drink does not taste very well.

 

Right. Right, right. But, you know, supposedly, the taste has medicinal quality; I’m saying that’s in the idea, right? Of course, in the old days, if it tasted bad, it must be good for you. They used it. It’s like, this is the energy drink.

 

Yeah, that’s okay. So prepare yourself before you drink this. Yeah, because it’s going to change you physically. That’s the promise.

 

Well, they’re not wrong.

 

Right. I agree.

 

So this is a really good story that’s going to take us into this big piece about picking the right story. But before we get to how to pick the right story, in your opinion and based on your expertise, why is picking the right story so important?

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to Our “Seed & Open Loops” Framework

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: Why It Matters and How to Make It Resonate

 

Standing Out in a Crowd — Well, the story of your brand is the umbrella idea with which people are going to approach you or not approach you. So the right story for your brand,  just means everything in what people think that your brand is about, or the promise, the thing that they hope to get from your brand. So I know it’s the idea of to a person with a hammer, everything’s a nail. Hmm. So, like, I get that I’m a differentiation guy, and that’s what I get paid for. And so it’s very easy for me to say that, but I, I genuinely believe that, that I feel that things don’t really have meaning until you add meaning to them. So, you know, what it is, is you are creating a story, and you are using, you’re, you’re telling the world or the public, here’s what my brand or what it is I produce, here’s what it means.

 

Standing Out in a Crowd — And here’s why you should have that meaning in your life. And by the way, one of the best things you can do is you already go to people who already believe that idea. This is an idea I read, once from Seth Godin, like, you, you kind of preach to the converted, you go to, to people where that idea is already a true thing. In one of his books, Seth states that all marketers are liars. Mm-Hmm. , he says, and I’m paraphrasing the quote,  but it’s almost exactly this. He said something like all taste is subjective. If you think IHOP makes the best pancakes, then they do because you want them to be the best. Right? So you will make the story right if it fits your worldview. So you create a brand, you create something with this idea, you tell people what this thing means, and then you go out, and you find people who already want that idea or believe in that idea.

 

So, okay, hang on a second. When you said sell to the converted or something like that, it reminded me of the mushroom story. Is that, are you putting those?

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to Our “Seed & Open Loops” Framework

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: Embracing Your Unique Appeal to Your Ideal Audience

 

Standing Out in a Crowd — Yeah. So, a marketer named Greg Steels straw, he was, very, he, he was very important with Rick Warren, with purpose-driven church and purpose-driven leader and all these things. Yeah. And so, in a book of Steels STRs, he said something, and I’m gonna add a lot to this. This is certainly not a verbatim quote, but the initial idea is correct. So he said in the book, he said, I hate mushrooms. Mushrooms are slimy. They’re cold, they’re disgusting, they’re a fungus. The mere thought of putting a mushroom in my mouth makes me wanna wretch. I hate mushrooms. He said that if you sell mushrooms for a living, if you grow mushrooms, and then package them and sell them, the way for you to sell more mushrooms is not to grow a hybrid mushroom that dumbs down its mushrooms.

 

Standing Out in a Crowd — The stuff that I find repulsive. Do not grow something that dulls that stuff down. Because you know why I hate mushrooms? I’m not gonna buy your mushroom regardless of what you do to it. The way for you to sell mushrooms is to grow mushrooms the way they really are, for the reasons that I hate. And you lead with those reasons. And you find, you sell mushrooms to mushroom lovers. There are people who hate mushrooms for the ver, pardon me. There are people who love mushrooms for the very same reasons. I hate mushrooms. Right? That’s a key line. That, and that’s actually, I believe,   verbatim what he said. There are people who love mushrooms for the exact same reasons. I hate mushrooms. Right? So you need to find the mushroom lovers. Don’t be dumb. Does that make sense? It’s the same thing.

 

Anyone who’s listening to this Yep. The things that make you and that make your products and services and your coaching and your consulting and all that stuff important.   there are people who are gonna hate those things. And then there are people who are gonna love those things for the exact same reasons. And you just have to get over it. I remember years ago, I wrote a blog post because on Amazon, they sent out an email, and it was a list of books, or maybe it was Audible, which is part of Amazon, or it was a list of audios where it had an enormous number of five-star reviews. Like, in other words, amazingly great reviews. You couldn’t go higher and get one-star reviews at the same time. In other words, same buck, right? Like, these had had such people at, at odds to such a degree. And so it was things, and they showed you different, different things that people said about it. For instance, I think in Exit the Ghost, the Philip Roth book, someone said that Roth is the greatest writer. And I’ve learned more about history from reading Roth’s books than any writer I ever read. And then a one star review was reading Philip Roth is like having a root canal. So it’s the same thing with your stuff. Yeah. It’s gonna happen.

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to Our “Seed & Open Loops” Framework

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness

 

Well, and that’s the point, like when you said, most brands in our world, agencies, and consulting firms are going to make themselves a little bit different by one standard deviation to the left or the right. Right. They’re thinking too linearly as opposed to really stepping away from the sea of sameness. I love the mushroom, story, and example. So now that we’ve established.

 

Standing Out in a Crowd — One telling the story? Say, lemme say one other thing. Only you triggered this, Yeah. If you sum it up like that, it is because of the internet. Mm-Hmm. , you are now stepping out into a much bigger marketplace than anyone in the history of the world ever stepped out into before. Like all of us. Like not just, you know, the people with all the money. We are all stepping into a marketplace that has so many different kinds of buyers. It’s like Chris Anderson with the idea of the long tail. Hmm. Right. Where there are people at the end of the tail, you can now make a living with people at the end of the tail because you can reach those people at the end of the tail. Yep. Who cares about something so idiosyncratic? So the fact that you are stepping out into the biggest marketplace in human history, it just makes sense that you’re gonna meet all kinds of different people there. People who are great people are not people who love one idea; people who hate that idea and love another idea. It’s because you’re in this giant marketplace. You just have to accept that you’re trying to sell an item in this giant marketplace. So you have exposure in a way that no one ever had before, which means exposure to the right people in a way that no one ever had before and in a wrong way that no one ever had before.

 

Anyway. Hence, hence the point of being differentiated. Otherwise, you just get stuck in a bigger sea of sameness.

 

Right. That’s right. So, how do we do this? You’ve done a great job of establishing the why and giving us some really great stories. So, how does someone pick the right story, in your opinion?

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to Our “Seed & Open Loops” Framework

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: The Fieldstone Method to Stand Out

 

Standing Out in a Crowd? Sure. Again, the way I go about doing things is very different than most people. So, I find people who are desperate to find the perfect idea when they try to differentiate their business. Mm-Hmm. And to find it right away that they rush towards commoditized ideas because they’ve already seen those work. That’s the big problem. If you really want something to work instantly and right away, this is the thinking. I’m not saying that this actually happens. Mm-Hmm. It’s like, oh yeah, well, that’ll work. Why? Because people, this is already pre-chewed. People have already seen this. It’s like they already, it’s like, got it. It’s like, right. That’s exactly what’s not gonna make you stand out. So what it is, right? ’cause several of my clients, like some of my clients, have changed society. They’re like some of the ideas we created that are known by hundreds of millions of people.

 

Standing Out in a Crowd — So what I’m saying is only if you actually wanna change the world should you follow this Mm-Hmm. If you wanna, I’d be cursing right now.   I won’t. I’m originally from New York, so I’d be cursing here, but I’m not going to. But if you wanna stay in some cursing kind of place, Yeah. And then just copy what’s already out there. So the way I find,  that you can come up with something really extraordinary is you first need to gather as many ideas, insights, stories, exercises, lessons, things like that, that are promising. You first gather all the stuff before you make any kind of judgment of what needs to be. The thing at the fore, and I’ll give you a metaphor I like to use here. There was a famous computer, maybe not famous, but there was a computer science writer and consultant named Jerry Weinberg who died a few years ago.

 

He wrote, I think like 70 books. And so he once wrote a book about how he goes about writing, which is apropos to what it is that we’re talking about here. And he called it the Fieldstone method. And what the Fieldstone method was. And, and writers, professional writers will certainly, this is something we all use. He said, if you wanna make a fieldstone wall, like I’m on a farm from 1748 here in New Hope, Pennsylvania. So I have actual field stone walls all around my property, right? So it’s not brick walls. They’re made out of stones that you would find in a riverbed or so. So, if you wanna make such a wall, the way not to make it is to try to find the perfect stone. Like, go around all over the place. And then you take it, and you go back to your property, and you put it down, and you step back, and you look at it, and you say, what stone should be next to it?

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to Our “Seed & Open Loops” Framework

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: The Art of Gathering Ideas

 

And now you go off for days and find the next stone that interlocks perfectly with it, and you put it there, and then you step back and go off for days, and it’ll take you 5,000 years to make a fieldstone wall. That way. The way you make the wall is you first go around your property, and you find all the promising stones, and you put ’em in a wheelbarrow, and you bring ’em over, and you make a pile. And then you go off maybe for a few weeks, and in your journeys, as you’re driving around and so forth, if you see interesting stones that may or may not be part of the wall, you don’t know, but they’re cool. You take ’em, you put ’em in your car, you bring ’em back, and you make your pile bigger and bigger. And you do that over the course of a few weeks or so.

 

And then when the pile is just like a certain felt sense height, it’s like, oh yeah, that seems like pretty good. You can still go collecting field stones, but now you start making the wall. What’s the best stone in this pile to start with? What’s the next stone? So you start to make the wall from that pile. And so, to me, that idea is something I’ve created a lot in my life as a writer, as a magician, creating shows, all kinds of things. And that’s really how you go about creating something; you gather too much promising stuff. Mm-Hmm. And then you decide what’s the most interesting thing here. Or what happens if I put two of these ideas together that I had never put together before? Or what happens if I draw a lesson from the story that I have not drawn from, the story before, and put that at the fore of what it is I’m doing? And I make that the umbrella thought, the big sexy idea as I like to call it. Right. If I put that, what would my business be about if that idea was at the forefront of my business? Right. So the first thing you need to do is gather too many ideas, insight stories, all kinds of stuff. Then you step back and start looking at things to construct it.

 

Yeah. Because the other day when you and I were chatting, you, you said to me, and I put this in my notes, and, and I’m thinking this runs along with what you’re just saying.  ’cause you mentioned about like, don’t try to be, don’t rush and, and, and try to make a decision instantly. You said trying to be right too quickly,  then it’s then, then what you come up with is it’s too close to what already exists. Right? Right.

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to Our “Seed & Open Loops” Framework

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: Educating Your Audience

 

When you try to be right too quickly, you invariably are relying too heavily on what’s already been okayed by the public at large, which is a way of drowning. Hmm. You know, it’s not gonna work. It’s not gonna work.  I’m a much bigger believer in this, and we may have talked about it. David Cronenberg, the art-house director, was the guy who did the fly with Jeff Goldblum. He made lots of very cool and bizarre films. So,  naked lunch, he did a lot of things. So Cronenberg, in an interview in Rolling Stone Magazine like 30 years ago, said this he said something like an entertainer gives you those old songs, you know, and love so well an artist gives you what you couldn’t know you’d want this time, but you know you’d want next time. Wow. And so, yes.

 

And so invariably, with my clients, with the people who I like to work with and who like to work with me, we almost invariably take a leadership position. And it’s not out of arrogance or something; it’s this idea of, you know, a lot about this subject. The people out there, your clients, they don’t know as much as you do. Hmm. You tell them what they need to know, not what they want to hear. Initially, you may need to educate them a little about it. You may get some pushback initially. That’s okay. You know, this is so good. That’s how I approach things.

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to Our “Seed & Open Loops” Framework

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: Unlocking the Power of Differentiation

 

This is so good. So I, I know that we are quickly running outta time and we need to come in for a landing, but I, what I, I wanna make sure our audience knows is that, you know, we’re, we’re certainly not trying to trim this down. It’s just time constraints within the episode.  if you’d like to learn more directly from Mark, then I would encourage you to drop me an email at [email protected] because we still have some,  free guest seats at our November intensive, which is November 15th and 16th. Mark is running all of day one. So, three and a half hours of differentiation. Again, it’s free. You can be our guest and come to our two-day intensive. So, if you want more details, just drop me an email again at [email protected], and we’ll make sure that you get one of those guest seats. So Mark, as we come in for a landing here, any final advice or anything you think we might have missed?  Please tell our audience the best way to connect with you.

 

Okay. So let’s see. Anything. I could talk about data. I know, I know. So that’s why when you say, is there anything that we missed, why don’t you ask me a directive question, and then I’ll answer that question?

 

Anything that we’ve missed is so big.

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to Our “Seed & Open Loops” Framework

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: The Intersection of Organic and Manufactured Strategies

 

Okay. So, and this, this might be me opening,  Pandora’s Box here.  but two days ago, Monday, when you and I were prepping for this conversation, we talked a little bit about, and I’m sure you’re correct me if I get this wrong, the Barbie story. Yes. And making a strategic decision. Right. And, and you had said something, I’m gonna give you two, two quotes here to sort of prime the pump. You said all meaning is constructive, meaning all meaning is made. And then you went on to say there’s organic differentiation, then there’s manufactured differentiation, right? So maybe that’s the next step after the story, after the fieldstone method, but maybe a couple of nuggets. There would be an awesome way to come in for landing.

 

Well, the Pandora’s box, and we’re gonna be talking about this at the intensive, but I’ll, I’ll talk about it a minute here or so,  is the idea of creating differentiation. I used to think of it as two different types of differentiation. There was organic differentiation. In other words, there was a differentiation that I would find when I was speaking to a client. Oh, here’s how your business started. Oh, here’s what your philosophy is. Oh, there’s all this differentiation. And I used to think that organic differentiation, my word for it is that’s the way to go. Hmm. Like you are creating something that’s true to the brand. And I used to think of manufactured differentiation. In other words, differentiation, that your business must be differentiated and manufactured. Differentiation was a differentiation that you had to create in order to stand out forcefully.

 

Learn more about Standing Out in a Crowd by tuning in to Our “Seed & Open Loops” Framework

 

Standing Out in a Crowd: Final Insights & Connecting with Mark

 

Cause we couldn’t find anything organic there. And I used to think the organic was so much better than the manufactured. Then, I came to a realization that the only difference was that all organic differentiation was manufactured at one point. It was just manufactured before I ever arrived. Like maybe you started to use a process eight years ago to do something. It wasn’t a process. You were born knowing how to do that, you read about it, or you made it, and you decided, oh yeah. And so that would be the organic differentiation, but like, why am I going against the fact that we could make something together so cool that it would leave that other stuff that you made years ago in the dust. Like, so I totally revamped how I thought about things. It’s like you have organic meaning to your business. Let’s see what that is and see if we can lead with that. But if that’s not going to make you stand out in the biggest, most important way possible, what can we create that’s still true to you, but that’s going to be new for you. So that’s it. So again, I’m, you asked about contacting me. So again, I’m Mark Levy, LEVY, and my website is Levy Innovation with no s at the end. I’m only capable of one innovation, levyinnovation.com. And you can email me at [email protected]

 

So awesome. Okay, everyone, no matter how many notes you took or how often you go back and re-listen to Mark’s words of wisdom, which I sure hope that you do. The key is you have to follow the process that he just gave you, this blueprint, and this framework that he just gave you for creating the right story. Take it and apply it to your business. Because when you do, you will step away from the sea of sameness in a very big way. And Mark, we all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day. I’m grateful that you said yes to coming to the show. I’m grateful that you’re starring in day one of our November intensive. Thank you so much for being our mentor and guide to help us raise the bar of excellence in our businesses. Thank you so much, my friend.

 

Thank you so much, and I look forward to seeing everyone.