If you've been a subscriber to my emails for some time you may well know that one of my passionate hobbies is close-up magic.

My performing days are long since gone, but every year I head up to a small convention in the North East to meet old friends and see some world-class performers.

Star of the show this year was American comedy magician Michael Finney. The audience at the gala show just fell in love with him.

Now Michael's act is fairly simple. His primary tricks, while very magical, are in the repertoire of thousands of magicians around the world.

What's different is how he performs them.

It's a very similar situation to that in which most professional service providers find themselves. While it would be great to differentiate ourselves by offering a service that no one else performs, the truth is that much of what we do is replicable by others. And much of what clients need from us are “standard” services.

So differentiating yourself by what you do can be tricky.

In Michael's case he performs these standard tricks, but he infuses them with so much of his personality and humour that he creates an act that no one else could come close to pulling off. By the time the audience on Saturday night went home they'd had the time of their lives.

Perhaps the simplest way to differentiate your business is to do what Michael Finney does: infuse it with your personality. Think about how you can make it the best experience your clients have ever had with a service provider like you.

And keep improving it every time you “perform”.

Of course, it's also one of the most difficult ways to differentiate your business too. You have to have the courage to come out of your shell. To stop pretending you're a mini version of a big firm. To work relentlessly to create the very best possible client experience you can.

As Michael said in his lecture on Sunday, magic has been very kind to him.  Your profession can be kind to you too, if you turn it into a performance.