Find Your Difference: Challenging Conformity in Business and in Life

by Austin McGhie

Overview

“At a time when courage seems in short supply, Austin McGhie’s Find Your Difference provides inspiration to step outside of the conventional . . . It should be required reading for any business stakeholder.” —Kevin Goetz, founder and CEO, Screen Engine/ASI

This book is for marketers. If you are selling anything—a product, a service, a company, an idea, a place, or a brand—you are a marketer.

Part exploration and part exhortation, Find Your Difference is a unique collection of observations, case studies, and hard-earned lessons from marketing expert and BRAND Is a Four Letter Word author Austin McGhie.

With humor and wisdom, McGhie makes the case for identifying your difference, highlights the importance of being distinctive, points out the “difference dampeners” that hold you back, and offers advice for creating real-world difference in business and in life. Here, you’ll learn:

• How to identify what makes your brand and products unique
• The top ten things to consider as you pursue difference
• A five-step plan for getting those around you prepared to “do different”

No matter what you’re selling, difference is key to building an audience. This practical guide provides thought-provoking tips and strategies designed to challenge you, inspire you, and, most importantly, help you find your difference.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781735873138
Publisher:	Silicon Valley Press
Publication date:	10/05/2021
Pages:	235
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Before turning thirty-five, Austin McGhie led a CPG marketing and sales team and a top advertising agency. Since then, he has successfully gotten older, run two more agencies, and built a nationally recognized marketing strategy business from the ground up before selling it to a global communications company. Today, he and his business partner, Alpa Pandya, happily run a small but mighty marketing strategy consulting business, somewhat appropriately named Find Difference. Along the way, Austin has advised clients such as Kellogg’s, Disney, Boeing, Nike, ESPN, NBC, YouTube, Levi Strauss, Westin, Amazon, Facebook, Visa, and Unilever.
Austin splits his time between San Francisco and Bodega Bay, with his wife, JJ, and their dog, Chili, surrounded by his beautiful and strongly opinionated nuclear family. In addition to participating in a host of writing and speaking engagements, Austin is the “almost-bestselling” author of BRAND Is a Four Letter Word: Positioning and the Real Art of Marketing. Visit him at FindDifference.com.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Preface xi

Chapter 0 3

Part I The Case for Difference

Chapter 1 Opening the Door to Difference 9

Chapter 2 The Science of Difference 34

Chapter 3 What's Really Going on Here? 49

Part II Difference Dampeners

Chapter 4 Our Parents and Our Institutions 83

Chapter 5 Our Companies 92

Chapter 6 Our Selves 107

Part III The Real-World Creation of Difference

Chapter 7 Finding Difference in Three Business Scenarios 121

Chapter 8 How to Create Differentiated Advantage: A Process 135

Chapter 9 Ten Things to Consider as You Pursue Difference 164

Chapter 10 Getting People on Board 195

Chapter 11 Difference in Execution 202

Chapter 12 Parting Thoughts 211

Acknowledgments 219

About the Author 221

What People are Saying About This

Peter Stringham

“[Find Your Difference] presents a thought-provoking case in favor of being different and our need to recognize our own failures to respect this crucial factor in building brands, product development and in our daily lives. McGhie urges us not to be afraid to be different but to embrace the times we feel like an outsider. Being different is a winning position.” —Peter Stringham, retired chairman and CEO of the Young & Rubicam Group

Paul Yanover

“The formula for producing true brand differentiation is one of the most explored and consistently least understood business topics. Find Your Difference is a fun, thought-provoking and ultimately pragmatic journey into the challenges and process of generating a truly differentiated position. A must-read for corporate executives and aspiring entrepreneurs hoping to breakthrough with impactful consumer focused innovation.” —Paul Yanover, president of Fandango

Daniel Pink

Praise for Brand Is a Four Letter Word “Creating a world-famous brand is easy. First, create a killer product. Next, read Brand is a Four Letter Word to get an idea of the kind of very hard (but rewarding) work you’ll need to do . . . There may be no shortcuts on this journey, but this book is the road map.” —Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive, A Whole New Mind and When

Kevin Goetz

“At a time when courage seems in short supply, Austin McGhie’s Find Your Difference provides inspiration to step outside of the conventional and forge a path to greatness. It should be required reading for any business stakeholder.” —Kevin Goetz, founder & CEO of Screen Engine/ASI

From the Publisher

Praise for Brand Is a Four Letter Word “I’ll tell you what I like about Austin’s work and why it’s worth reading. He’s written an angry book about what’s not happening in the marketing world. To me, it’s time to get angry and restate what many overlook or just don’t get about building a differentiated brand.” —Jack Trout, global marketing expert and author

Andy Cunningham

“Branding powerhouse Austin McGhie has nailed it again in Find Your Difference. It turns out people are hardwired to notice what’s different. So if you want to stand out—and who doesn’t?—you have to be different. How hard is that? The answer is VERY HARD. Austin reveals the secrets to creating your difference so that you can separate from the crowd and win big.” —Andy Cunningham, founder & CEO of Cunningham Collective and author of Get to Aha! Discover Your Positioning DNA and Dominate the Competition.

Editorial Reviews

...The author’s marketing chops pervade the book; his observations are insightful; his experience is germane; and the examples he uses are pertinent. McGhie’s writing style is conversational yet professional, and his passion for the subject is infectious. His viewpoint on difference is all-encompassing. In the end, he writes, difference isn’t just for marketing, but also for “creating change in the larger systems, customs and ideologies that govern our lives.” Shrewd advice any marketer would be wise to heed. -Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2021-09-29
A marketing veteran preaches about differentiation in this guide.

McGhie, author of BRAND Is a Four Letter Word(2012) and founder of several marketing agencies, is highly qualified to write about marketing difference. In this book targeting marketers, the author first validates with research the need to be different, then discusses several forces that impede the process, and finally explores the wide variety of ways to achieve this goal in the business world. While the notion of difference is not unique, McGhie’s in-depth knowledge of the topic enables him to refer to his own considerable experience as well as cite examples accompanied by expert commentary. In Part I, the author strongly asserts that successfully creating a difference “can influence, even lead culture.” He discusses difference in a way that broadens its context. For example, he introduces the term “difference quotient” or “DQ” to characterize individuals who have a deep understanding of the importance of the quality. He also legitimately contrasts “smart difference” with “dumb difference,” noting that “any idiot can be different” when employing “difference for its own sake.” Part II is an amalgamation of “dampeners,” those people, institutions, and organizations that can kill difference. Among them, according to McGhie, are parents, educational institutions, large companies, and even marketers—“Sometimes,” writes the author, “we ourselves are the biggest dampeners of our difference.” His argument supporting this perspective is creatively intriguing. Part III is likely the most useful portion; here, McGhie illustrates three specific business scenarios for finding difference, provides a five-step process for creating a differentiated advantage, and lists 10 considerations in pursuing the strategy. This section should be particularly relevant to any manager who takes the message about differentiation to heart. The author’s marketing chops pervade the book; his observations are insightful; his experience is germane; and the examples he uses are pertinent. McGhie’s writing style is conversational yet professional, and his passion for the subject is infectious. His viewpoint on difference is all-encompassing. In the end, he writes, difference isn’t just for marketing, but also for “creating change in the larger systems, customs and ideologies that govern our lives.”

Shrewd advice any marketer would be wise to heed.

Kirkus Reviews