Your Unique Advantage

You have a special advantage, an edge nobody else has. When you put that exceptional advantage to work for you -- when you take some time to develop it as you would strengthen a muscle -- you get something which reduces perceived risk and triples your odds for success.

That something is called Informed Confidence.

In actuality, research in progress by the SBA Office of Advocacy shows that confidence is the number one success factor when starting any new enterprise. But confidence alone isn't enough. You will need the type of assurance you get just by doing the footwork.

How can you turn your distinctive advantage into the border called Informed Confidence? You do it by identifying your unique value and analyzing opportunities that permit you to put that exceptional value to use in support to your perfect clients.

Identifying Your Distinctive Value

Your distinctive value is a combination of your preferred principles and the thing you do best. Assessing your principles requires you to analyze your targets. It forces you to analyze your individual beliefs about money, people, reciprocity, relationships, and time.

Being aware of what you do best takes more insight than many folks realize. Yet what you do best could be easy to identify if you will ask yourself these questions:

- To what type of issues or situations am I attracted?

- What type of issues or situations are attracted to me?

One of the best ways to work out the answers to those questions would be to free-write your replies. In other words, sit down and let your mind rest on every question for a minute, then starting writing about it as fast as possible without editing or judgment. You could even draw mind maps of the replies, or sketch a picture of those replies. Use any technique that feels comfortable for you.

Regardless of what technique you use, you may realize that if you trust the process you will receive results -- some of which you might not have expected.

Assessing Opportunities

As soon as you identify your unique worth and have articulated the sorts of issues you are naturally inclined to resolve, study the issues. Become a student of these and an observer of the men and women who have them. Be open to wherever your distinctive value can help resolve problems -- and identify aspects of this problem which may require application of special value you do *not* have. Then either locate others who have those special values or develop the skills necessary to deliver extra value yourself.

By way of example, your distinctive value might lie in identifying market opportunities. Maybe you're a bit weak on the other hand, however, so you may choose to partner with someone who's proficient at translating vision into clear advertising specifications.

Your Informed Confidence

As soon as you can perceive opportunities from the perspective of your distinctive value as seen through the eyes of your ideal clients, you've developed a degree of Informed Confidence. The more you observe and refine your understanding, the deeper that confidence becomes.

Your distinctive benefit is the marriage of your understanding of the issue and the distinctive perspective you bring to solving it.

Bring that marriage into play in connection with your clients, and you may realize that they'll find their own distinctive advantage.