I was reading Seth Godin’s Small is the New Big, and this sentence struck me.

“Be different… or cheaper. You will fail if you try to do both… or neither.”

Is very true. Many businesses, big and small, struggle because of a price war. Competition. I know a friend who owns a computer hardware retail shop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He tells me that the markup for computer hardware retail is less than 5%!

That is tough business, I must say.

Note, also that there will be only ONE medal for “cheapest”, but there can be an infinite number “DIFFERENT” products/services. In reality, the “cheapest” usually goes to the big guys – the one who can afford to be “cheapest”, the ones who own large manufacturing plants and can product volumes a thousand times yours.

So strive to be different. That is your only guarantee of survival.

How are your products and services different from others?