There’s a lot of talk lately about the importance of differentiation — differentiation of the firm and differentiation of the you. This idea is rightfully termed “The Brand Called You”. Peter Montoya has the book (I haven’t read it yet but plan to). Many other authors write about the same thing - Seth Godin, Harry Beckwith, Tom Peters. It’s a down right popular topic of late. On of my favorite books on topic is The Proverbial Crackerjack by Dale Henry. It’s a great book and a very entertaining read - I highly recommend it.

Garr Reynolds (Presentation Zen guru) has a portion of his presentation Differentiation & Engagement on his blog. In his presentation, Garr states “If you are not a brand, you will be a commodity.” How true this is. Our biggest struggle as professional engineers, especially geotechnical engineers, seems to be the battle against commodity. Commodity is our own fault but we just can’t seem to fight the pull — that need to get more work. So, we often turn our back on the practice of price bidding. We give in. Well, I’m off topic on a rant.

So, the key to success (and not being commodity) is differentiation; both of the firm and you as an individual. Check out the reading list, watch Garr’s presentation and be different. Surprise your client (exceed his expectations)!

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 19th, 2007 at 9:09 am and is filed under Personal Success, Professionalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.