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Keep Your Milk Fresh: Advice for Those in Business Who Want to Stay in Business

By: Keith Cohn
Principal C&M MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS

Starbucks, touted as one of the most successful chain establishments, even makes this mistake. If you order a Cinnamon Dolce Skinny Latte from 120 Starbucks locations, you can bet that each and every one will taste exactly the same.

Branding is as much about what you promise as it's about the customer experience.

"The milk is bad at the one off of San Felipe," my wife said to me the other day. "Everytime I go, I can never be sure if it's a good milk day or a bad milk day."

Not that I don't believe my wife, but is the milk ALWAYS bad? Probably not. But the one time the milk was bad, it probably wasn't bad for just my wife's coffee: it was bad for everyone's coffee from the time the bad milk was put out until the time someone realized it and refreshed the milk.

The moral of the story: keep your milk fresh. You're not the only game in town. You're competing with other companies that do exactly what you do. But, for your sake, I hope you do it differently and offer your clients a benefit they can't find anywhere else. A unique selling proposition is just that: something your business does consistently and advertises of itself that is unique to any other business in your market.

The idea is to ensure your customer's satisfaction by way of meeting or exceeding their expectations. If your company's unique feature, for example, provides the quickest response, it's tantamount to your market share that you not only put your money where your mouth is, but keep it there. Forever. So long as your doors stay open.

The biggest secret to success is no secret at all: Consistency. The staple of any and every business model, on paper, is to do whatever special thing your company says it can do 100% of the time.