Don’t compare

No one can have missed the incessant TV adverts for car insurance and car insurance comparison websites. They are nearly all very annoying and I think insult my intelligence (no snide comments, please).

Discounting the one-in-twelve of British motorists who go uninsured and therefore have no interest in any car insurance, the advertisers are all competing just for market share. Apart from the occasional special offer for new customers, none of them claims to be cheaper. All they are really offering is a tool or means to find cheaper insurance, but essentially they are all offering the same service. It is not about being better or giving the customer more satisfaction. They are trying to get an idea stuck in the viewer’s mind. That idea is not insurance but a ghastly confused cartoon character or an irritating unfunny faux-opera singer or Russian immigrant animal from the Kalahari. The latter is the only theme I ever liked and that has palled by now.

The same premise of just advertising to get a share of a fixed or static market also applies to feminine hygiene products and it used to apply to cigarette advertising when that was allowed. In other words such things are either needed by a section of the population or in the case of cigarettes the target was those who didn’t need them but couldn’t give up.

I accept that there is a measure of personal choice in a way of doing things in the same way that I prefer a particular type of toothbrush. Others might make a different choice. In the end, though, all that is on offer is a mass of relatively indistinguishable products.

Small business owners cannot compete with large suppliers. Why should we? Large suppliers cannot give personal service. They cannot go the extra mile. They cannot think about individual customers or cater for their needs. They cannot tailor the service to the customer.

You and I don’t need to compete with our large competitors. We don’t need to compete with each other because what we are doing is selling ourselves with personal branding. My clients buy me. They don’t buy a cheaper service. That is not what I am selling.

I sell an individual service specific to my clients or customers. That’s what you do too. Insurance comparison websites are really all the same. We are really all different. That’s our advantage, isn’t it?