It is absolutely crucial to show your customers how your product or service is different. But what if your business, your product, or your service is similar to your competitor's? How do you differentiate sameness? Paper towels are paper towels. And plumbing is plumbing. So what makes the difference?

The trick is to make your business look unique. One way of doing this is to simply tell your story. Tell potential customers what you do, how you do it, and let them know what you put into your product or service for them. Otherwise they have no clues as to how much effort you go to for them.

For example, a paper towel company would explain the lengths they go to create the most absorbent paper towel. These are probably the same steps every other paper towel company takes, but the public doesn't know that. Our paper towel company gets in first and becomes the definitive word on paper towel manufacturing. If the other companies try to follow they will be perceived as "copy cats" and will loose credibility.

How do you condense your story into a few sentences or short paragraphs? Write a list giving one-word descriptions of each of the steps you take in working with a customer from first contact (be it over the phone or in a retail store) to end delivery of your product or service. Write a short sentence with each of these one-word descriptions in which you highlight a benefit to your customer. These form the basis of your "article" about your business. You then use this "story" or parts of it in all your advertising and in your sales brochures.