A while ago I did a “strategy workout” with one of my clients. An intense day blasting through all the key factors to build them a powerful marketing strategy and action plan.

One of the areas we looked at was their approach to large clients. And creating a strategy for one of their “gold star” clients in particular

The firm has a huge contract with them, one they can't afford to lose when it comes up for renewal.

One of the advantages her firm had over the majority of their competitors is that they have locations and staff all over the country, matching this client's locations and able to deliver training courses to them locally.

“But”, said my client, “one of our big competitors could say that too”.

She was right.

But here's the thing: just because they could say that, doesn't mean they will.

When you're planning your strategy you can't back away from talking about something that's of real value to your client just because someone else might be able to say the same.

The chances are, they won't.

(And even if they do, you're still better off than if they talk about it and you don't).

Sometimes we overthink things. We end up being spooked by shadows. Imagining that our competitors are super-marketers able to respond to our every move.

And so we end up being paralysed. Searching for the perfect strategy.

But we're much better off taking action on a good strategy.

Look at Dominos for example. Often lauded as an example of a brilliant Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

But really, just how unique is “fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes…or it's free”?

Pretty much any pizza delivery company could make that promise.

It's a strategy that's almost trivial to copy.

Yet back when they came up with it, no one did copy them.

Dominos' real secret was that they were bold. They spotted something that was valuable to customers (fast delivery) and they marketed the heck out of it.

They stuck a guarantee behind it. They made sure everyone knew about it. They infused everything they did with that positioning.

What they didn't do was sit around worrying about whether anyone might copy them. Trying to come up with something that was so unique to them that no one could ever get near it.

They spotted something clients valued. They focused on it and took action.

And that's what we should do too.