I asked an audience at a speech if Fleet’s huge campaign to rebrand was going to work. She said, “Well, if I go into a branch and they treat me well, it’ll work.”

She might have seen 100 ads, but it’s from the experience she would form her opinion of what the bank’s really like. And that’s how brand happens.

1. How do we help customers achieve their business objectives?
2. How do we do this better than anyone else? (Look at Porter’s 5 Forces)
3. How do we demonstrate #1 and #2 to customers in a compelling way that they believe and remember?

I like your model. “resonate, differentiate, and substantiate” is a great mantra. I also like how you encourage clients to show it in the customer experience, not just some value prop statement.

That’s where the conviction comes in. I’ve always thought about it in relation to Wickham Skinner’s Focused Factory writing: http://www.enotes.com/management-encyclopedia/focused-factory.

Basically, the more you do something the better you get at it (providing more value) and the more efficiently you can do it (making you more competitive in your operations).

Service firms sometimes shift their strategic energy on whatever kind of business has been coming in lately as well as what opportuntites have popped up. Then follow the low hanging fruit and lose focus. Their delivery suffers. As goes the delivery, so goes the reputation, the revenue, and the profit.

Two other considerations: conviction and conversion.

It takes conviction to lead with a value proposition that may not be appealing to all customers but reflects your distinct competencies. You can’t be all things to all people.

What you lose in broad appeal, you gain in a higher close rate.

Robert Lesser
http://www.twitter.com/RobertLesser