You can change your positioning to appear more unique or higher-value by leveraging multiple tools related to anchoring, framing and contrast and others.

There are three main ways to achieve this:

• Change your anchoring and/or your consented claims
  • If you claim to be the best, the fastest, or whatever the initial claim is, anyone that is coming to you is consenting to that claim, in a way;
  • If I write a book claiming to be “the top executive coach” and you come to me having read that book, you believe to an extent I am the top executive coach;
• Change your reputation
  • Regardless of what you actually do, you can decide to actively be known for a specific thing, and people will expect it when coming to you;
  • Many companies are known as “family-oriented” or “friendly”, and despite bad things they do, they keep that reputation;
• Use bundling
  • You can claim that you are a certain thing conditionally based on something;
  • “I am the best manager in this company… for top performers in specific”;
  • “I am a coach that generates a lot of results… for committed clients only”;
• Change the actual paradigm
  • Being in a league of your own and changing the game
  • Apple vs. other electronic device manufacturers;
  • Tony Robbins vs. other personal coaches;

Underlying Psychology/Biases

Sub-Techniques

• Changing your claims and reputation
  • You can create a reputation for being whatever you want. The best, the fastest, or any other variation;
  • It leverages labeling fallacies, which are very effective and dangerous;
    • When a label sticks, it will even resist evidence to the contrary;
    • For example, a company claiming to “care about their customers”, and despite doing multiple things to the contrary, the initial label sticks;
• Using bundling
  • Stating that your value proposition is conditional to something else;
  • “I’m the best real estate agent… for clients that pay a 6.5% fee”, as in, “I don’t guarantee results for the others”;
  • “I’m the best fund manager… for allocators that comply with our requests provisions”, as in, “If you have different ones, no guarantees”;
  • In short, you’re declaring the conditions that are necessary for you to perform and stating that you only perform under those conditions;
• Changing the paradigm
  • The hardest of all techniques;
  • Interesting mnemonics:
    • Clayton Christensen’s definition of disruptive innovation. Do something that is 10x faster, 10x better, or that does something to a different order of greatness as the competition;
    • Grant Cardone’s 10X rule. Same theory. How can you do 10x more? Serve 10x more customers? Work 10x faster?
    • Being the first, best or only at something;
      • For example, either being the best candidate for a position, the first one, or the only one;
      • This can be changed by changing the option set;
        • I may not be the best executive overall, but I may be the best executive in this company;

Examples

• The Pareto Principle (80/20)
  • Usually, the top 20% of people in an industry control 80% of it and have 80% of all profits, while the other 80% only have 20%. This can even be more extreme, such as 90-10 or even 99-1;
• Book authors
  • When you consult with a book author, you are accepting their claims of being an expert at something, as they are publicly stating they are;
• Playing by your own rules
  • When you change the paradigm and play your own game, you will have your own platforms, audiences, products and services, and won’t even be comparable to others;
• Steve Jobs and hoodies
  • Although this is common in Silicon Valley now, at the time, Steve Jobs was the only Fortune 500 CEO to dress in a black hoodie and jeans. He did because he changed the paradigm. When you’re 10x better than the others, you can do whatever you want;

Commercial/Known Uses

• The Pareto Principle (80/20);
• Grant Cardone’s 10x Rule;

Key Takeaways

• The are four major methods to achieve this:
  • Change your anchored claims;
  • Change your reputation;
  • Bundle your value proposition with conditions;
  • Change the actual paradigm;
• You can change your claims and reputation by changing the initial anchor, the initial impression. Be known for that and it will resist evidence to the contrary;
• You can bundle your value proposition based on conditions. “I’m the best under [ABC] conditions. Otherwise, no guarantees”;
• You can actually change the game if you can change the paradigm. Be the first/best/only, or do something 10x more than others;