Uncopyable: How to Create an Unfair Advantage Over Your Competition

by Steve Miller

The problem with the hamster-wheel approach is it’s based on becoming better than the competition. But you don’t want to be better, because better can always be bettered, ad infinitum. The only way to climb off of the wheel is by becoming Uncopyable—demonstrably, clearly, undoubtedly, measurably, meaningfully Uncopyable.

standardized products are impacting prices and margins, thus threatening companies in all industries.

Is ILL becoming a commoditized product?

63% of the companies surveyed are already facing the commoditization of their products and services, yet 54% have yet to take sufficient action to escape.

Was improving turnaround time an action toward escape?

So when you or your company wants to innovate, where do you get new ideas? Not from the candy industry, that’s for sure. You look within your world. It’s only natural because that’s the heuristic we’ve developed. And that’s a mistake.

After all, your target market will always base its minimum level of expectation on the best thing being offered in your industry.

Our customers must first become attached to us, professionally and personally attached. That’s a tall order, but attachment is the key to everything that follows: the loyalty, the evangelism, and the promotion of what you sell by those to whom you sell it. When you create attachment, you not only best your competition but also leave them scratching their heads and eating your dust.

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Achieving Uncopyable status requires a consciously developed practice of observation and curiosity and an almost contrarian perspective. Instead of following the leaders in your market, break away from them by creating new rules of competition they can’t or won’t play under—as Hamilton does.

You are not in the business of making widgets. You are in the business of selling and marketing widgets.

You (the business owner) are first and foremost the number-one salesperson for your company, and if you can’t sell your product, nobody else can, either.

You start with your market. Who are the prospective customers in your target market? What can you tell me about them? There are two important parts to knowing your market: demographic and psychographic.

After you’ve painted a clear picture of your target-market prospects, what message can you craft that gets their attention?

You see, the essence of your brand is the big, specific promise you make to your customers.

most competition doesn’t create innovation. It creates conformity.

Observing correct behavior within your industry only gives you a comparison of how you’re doing. If you truly want to innovate you must put yourself outside your comfort zone, exposing yourself to alien experiences (my words). Observing correct behavior among aliens can often stimulate completely new ways of looking at something common in your world.

As you progress through the rest of this book, look for those new perspectives and ideas that whack you upside the head just lightly. It might be in your branding strategy. It might be in your innovation strategy. It might be in your experience strategy. Heck, it might be in more than one!

I was confused. I began wondering why, if Barbara was so important, wasn’t she at this meeting? They all laughed and said, “Barbara isn’t real. She’s our ideal customer. She’s forty years old, married with two kids, has a household income of $150,000, is fairly social, and upwardly mobile. Whenever we make a decision, we try to put ourselves in Barbara’s head and wonder what she would think.”

Barbara Bergman

When you identify the demographics and characteristics of your market, you are defining how they fit with you. Most companies have no problem describing their specific Barbara, as Nordstrom did. When you do that, you are describing a prospect. A prospect fits the profile of your target market. But there’s a second and very critical behavior prospects must display in order to be labeled leads. They must show some level of interest.

Robert Collier was an early marketing/advertising pioneer and author of The Robert Collier Letter Book. (I highly recommend this book for those who are interested in writing better copy.)

Now imagine you come up with a message only you can say, only you can promise, only you can deliver. That’s where the concept of Uncopyable comes in.

I worked with a company where the owner had great bantering humor, but he absolutely didn’t want that to be a part of the company’s branding. That was a lost opportunity, and too many companies take themselves too seriously.

“That word resonates with us, so we’re going to take that word now. How do we reinforce it? How can we symbolize it? How do we get into the minds of customers and prospects so they connect that word with us?”

Smart fulfillment?

I don’t have fans, friends, followers, or subscribers. I have BFFs. Everybody’s a BFF.

Improvement is not innovation. Innovation is closer to game changing than it is to incremental upward movement.

She said, “Do you have one of your books with you?” “Yeah.” She said, “Would you give it away as a prize?” And I said, “Sure. Why not?” So we take off. Mind you, this is a very short flight, only about forty-five minutes or so. After the flight attendants did their little safety spiel, she took the microphone and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are so excited to tell you we have the world-famous author Steve Miller on board our flight today. And he has generously offered an autographed copy of one of his books to the winner of our contest. Here’s what the contest is: Take out a piece of paper, write down your seat number, and then write down how many squares of toilet paper you think it will take to go down the aisle from row 1 to row 30. We’re going to

Aargh! 10:30 p.m. at night, and I’ve got to go out and find some toothpaste. Damn. I went inside to drop my briefcase off and had started to head out again when I happened to glance in the bathroom. Lying on the counter of the bathroom was a new tube of toothpaste and a note from the housekeeper that read, “Dear Mr. Miller, I saw you were out of toothpaste. I didn’t want you to have to worry about it, so I took the liberty of replacing it for you. Hope you’re enjoying your stay. —Marsha” Wow! I’m in the business of wow, and yet I was wowed. Go to the Muse Hotel’s website and you’ll see its branding promise: “We love harnessing the energy of the city in our hotel, but we also have a relaxed, reflective side. Our thinking caps are always on as we imagine ways to keep things fresh and welcoming for you.”

Here’s the thing: A richly imprinted experience wants to be repeated. It wants to be remembered. And it wants to be shared.

Fiskars, the company that makes those orange-handled scissors, has a club called the Fiskateers. (Where in the heck did the company get the idea for that name?) Fiskars started it up because it realized a lot of women used their scissors for crafts and sewing—and they were using them in groups, little communities of crafters who got together to make things on a regular basis. So, if you join the Fiskateers, you get your own special pair of scissors. Instead of having a typical orange handle, one loop is green and the other is orange. They set users apart when crafting with their friends. When a club member shows up and pulls out those scissors, everybody says, “Oh, you’re a Fiskateer.”

Look to Be Controversial. This is something that scares people, but it’s absolutely critical that you’re willing to risk skating on the edge here. Why? Because if you’re not a little bit controversial, if you’re not pushing the envelope on some level, then you’re almost certainly too easy to copy. Being Uncopyable means—should mean—you are not for everybody. Being a little bit controversial thins the herd.

My story had three primary elements. The first element was me, the Protagonist. I’m the main character. I described who I was and what I was responsible for in my company. I wanted you to identify with me in some fashion. I was saying, “I’m like you! We have some of the same issues and challenges!” I wanted you to see yourself in my story. Did it work?

The second element was Conflict. After achieving a modicum of success in my first year with the Dust Runner, a very bad, evil company took our winning concept, copied it, and brought it to market. As a result, the following year, our sales went way down. Not fair! The third element was Resolution. While it took several years of playing this vicious circle game, I finally realized there had to be a better way of competing. I realized it simply wasn’t good enough to be better than the competition; I had to be relevantly and valuably different! That started my journey to develop the UNCOPYABLE Philosophy. Storytelling can be an extremely powerful marketing and branding tool, especially for B2B.

storytelling is the Secret Sauce to becoming Uncopyable!

I’ll leave you with one of my all time favorite quotes from Frank Perdue of Perdue Farms: If you can differentiate a dead chicken, you can differentiate anything. Now, go be Uncopyable.