Three Uniques

The three uniques sit in the marketing strategy box beside the target market, the proven process and the guarantee. EOS asks a leadership team to test each candidate against a competitor by name. Whatever survives goes into the sales conversation and, more usefully, into the list of things the company protects when it gets busy.

Questions about difference usually get answered with words like quality and service, which every competitor also claims. Forcing three specific answers that have to hold as a set gets past that. It also tells operations what not to cut, since the uniques are exactly what a stretched quarter is most tempted to quietly stop doing.

Worked example: A specialty insurer landed on three: every policy reviewed by an underwriter who has worked in the customer's trade, quotes returned the same day, and claims handled by the person who wrote the policy. Any large competitor could manage one of those. The third was under pressure from a growth plan, and naming it out loud saved it.

Sources: Traction, Gino Wickman, chapter on Vision; eosworldwide.com/eos-tools