INTERVIEW HOW STORIES ARE BETTER THAN SEX
The D.I.G. Methodology The Five Layers Of Differentiation
Dig deeper to stand out by using Michel Neray’s steps to set yourself apart from others.
The First Layer: ‘What’ Differentiation
The “What” Differentiation can be best described by this very straightforward question: Do you get better results than everyone else in your industry? What we’re looking for here are the generic, quantitative end results that everyone in your field would love to promise. It’s what your clients want when all is said and done.
The Second Layer: ‘Who, Where and When’ Differentiation
The thinking behind the “Who, Where and When” Differentiation goes something like this: If you can’t legitimately and credibly claim that you are the best in your field, how can you narrow the definition of your field or highlight an aspect of your business so that you can be best or unique in something? Can you narrow the definition of what you do, where you do it, when you do it or who you do it for that would enable you to claim a differentiating advantage?
The Third Layer: Upper ‘Why’ Differentiation
The Upper “Why” Differentiation answers a key question always at the back of potential clients’ minds, whether a person verbalizes it or not: “Why should I believe you have the capability to do what you say you can do?” What do you tell your clients to give them more confidence that you can actually deliver the goods?
The Fourth Layer: ‘How’ Differentiation
The “How” Differentiation is most powerful in mature industries that have a lot of competitors. “How” you do what you do is as unique to you as who you are. No one is wired quite the same way you are, and no one has the same set of formative experiences, perspective or DNA. Like it or not, you have a unique way of viewing the world around you.
The Fifth Layer: Deeper ‘Why’ Differentiation
It’s not about why you do what; it’s about why do you do how you do what. Perhaps the challenge you are driven to solve today is a challenge you faced yourself. Perhaps the thing you help other people overcome is the lesson you learned — the hard way. Perhaps the lesson you help other people learn is the same lesson you continue to learn over and over again.
NERAY: I sat down with a friend of mine at my dining room table and he asked me very simple questions. “What do you do next? And why do you do that?” He forced me to think about it and give him the answers. Then I said, “I don’t know, isn’t that obvious?” He said, “No, it’s not obvious.” But it was obvious to me and I guess it’s not obvious to everybody else. That’s why it has value to everybody else. What we do so naturally, we also do invisibly, which is why most of the time we’re not even aware of our own greatest value. FELDMAN: Once you have the answers on the process, what’s next? NERAY: Then we say, “Well, where did that come from?” In my case, it’s something that took me 40 years to deconstruct and figure out. My mother was a Holocaust survivor — she spent a year in Auschwitz. I grew up as a little French-Jewish kid in an English-Protestant school, because my mother was from France. So we moved to Montreal, which ostensibly was Frenchspeaking, except I grew up in a little English neighborhood. So I grew up as a little French-Jewish kid in an English-Protestant school in a French-Catholic province. And it didn’t matter what group of kids I hung out with — I was always the odd kid out. I was a shy kid. And you might think a shy little kid like that might do everything in his little power to kind of blend in and not stand out, but that’s not what I did. In reverse-engineering why I do how I do what I do, I believe that the reason why I never tried to blend in was because of the experience of my parents in the Second World War — my mother being a Holocaust survivor and my father fighting in the French Foreign Legion. Just being keenly aware of never again wanting to be ashamed or trying to hide who I was. FELDMAN: Thanks for sharing that story. How would I, as a regular business owner, an insurance agent, do that exploration? What are the steps to do that? NERAY: If you ask the usual and expected questions, you’ll get the usual and
16
InsuranceNewsNet Magazine » November 2018