Austin McGhie - Find Your Difference: Challenging Conformity in Business and in Life

Copyright 2021 Austin McGhie
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Silicon Valley Press, Carmel, CA
Siliconvalleypress.net

Cover design: Philippe Becker

ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-7358731-3-8
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-7358731-4-5
LCCN: 2021910763

First edition

The person who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The person who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever seen before.

Albert Einstein

Austin McGhies belief that true difference is the engine that propels great brands is absolute. In fact, I sometimes wonder if its a conviction so deeply held that its made its way into his DNA.

As business partners, Austin and I debate the difference quotient of our recommendations on an almost daily basis. However, we rarely lose sight of the fact that the forces of orthodoxy and inertia are far stronger than most peoples desire to uproot the status quo.

While there is lots of rhetoric and chatter in business about reinvention and disruption, there is enormous reticence to actually walk the talk. As Austin has often quoted, The only one who likes change is a wet baby.

One interesting evolution has been seeing Austin espouse the virtues of difference beyond businessin life at large. Of COVIDs many revelations, surely the most obvious one is that business as usual is the ultimate air castle.

A future-ready human race doesnt need more of the same. As a society, we need to embrace difference to face and ace the challenges of the twenty-first century.

The trick in all of this is not to seek difference for its own sakethere are so many examples of vapid, lame, desperate difference out therebut thats for another book.

The real opportunity for business and individuals alike is to find what makes you different in a way that makes you betterand then to use your difference to build a better world.

Like the indispensable Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout, or the masterful Zag by Marty Neumeier, Austins Find Your Difference is both timely and evergreen. It really is a must read.

Alpa Pandya

We love difference, but we hate to be different.

We celebrate and follow those who are truly unique, yet we shy away from doing something completely different ourselves.

We speak longingly of the path not taken, yet we never walk it.

While most marketers understand that brands and businesses reach the upper echelons of success only when they offer something truly unique, these same people fail to take the risk of doing something completely different.

Why?

As a marketing strategist, I have come up against this question countless times in my forty-year career. In these pages, I attempt to answer it.

This is a book for working marketers. If you want to sell anythinga product, a service, a company, an idea, a place, or a personalityyou are a marketer. Because business runs on selling products and services to people, business runs on marketing. Sooner or later, regardless of profession, we all need to sell our ideas to others, so were all working marketers of some kind. Of course, this would suggest that every single human being should read this book.

Isnt marketing great?

As a marketer, no matter the size or shape of your endeavor or what you are selling, if you want to succeed, you need to find and then market your difference. Strategically and tactically, difference is the engine room of great marketing.

If you are trying to build your own brand or business, difference is the key. Find the one thing that differentiates you in the most compelling way possible, and you will win. Failure to do different leads to marketing mediocrity. Without difference, you will work much harder than those who succeed, with much less to show for your effort.

If difference is central to marketing, why do we see it so rarely?

Herein lies the challenge: Difference is the most important yet most elusive construct in marketing. The gap between understanding the importance of difference and actually creating it is massive. Its a chasm that only the best and bravest marketers cross.

I want to show you how.

This book is part exploration and part exhortationpart Why does this chasm exist? and part How can you cross it? Because if you want to succeed, youve got to get to the other side. Youve got to take the leap.

The difficulty with difference is found not in understanding but in action. I can offer understanding, but the action will be up to you.

Ready? Here is the itinerary for your trip across that chasm:

Part I: The Case for Difference

Successful brands and businesses are built on difference. Through a combination of subjective opinion, war stories, and inarguable data, Ill prove this thesis once and for all, then we can move on.

Part II: Difference Dampeners

Doing something completely different makes the vast majority of us uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. Well explore the underpinnings of this discomfort and see how we might get out of our own way.

Part III: The Real-World Creation of Difference

Now that youre determined to do different, this practical guide will show you how to find and create difference in business, strategically and tactically.

Along the way, I hope this exploration of difference will challenge you, inspire you, andmost importantlyhelp you.

As Ive written this book, exploring difference has taken me to some unexpected places. For example, Ive come to realize how important diversity is in the day-to-day creation of differencediversity of every possible kind. Homogeneity and weakly held beliefs are enemies of difference. So Ill make an impassioned case for diversity, not as corporate obligation but as an important source of competitive advantage.

Further, Ive come to realize that any thorough discussion of difference must acknowledge its shadow. In business, we succeed by being unique in a way that is better than our competitors. In life, however, applying relative value to differencethe notion that two things cant just be different, but one must be bettercauses extraordinary damage. How might the world change if we celebrated difference in equal measure?

Fundamentally, this is a business book, yet I hope it is more. I hope you learn something new, but, more importantly, I hope you think something new.

Lets get going.

One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.

John F. Kennedy

Once upon a time, in a city far, far away, I was an overconfident, highly ambitious little assistant brand manager, fresh out of MBA school. The son of a leading clinical psychologist, I had fallen in love with marketing as some sort of exercise in art meets business meets psychology. I couldnt wait to get started in my new lifewith my new suit and my shiny new credit card.

Never in school did I so much as catch a mention of difference. For several years as a packaged goods brand marketer, theoretically at the top of my trade, no one I worked for stressed the importance of difference. We built brands, drove volume, and gained market sharebut difference was MIA. Come to think of it, we didnt even measure it. We tracked so many key variables itd make your head spin, but not that one.