If someone were to ask for the one, unique factor people chose your product or service over your competitors, what would you tell them? A factor that is unique to your business, a factor you market and build your brand equity with? More often than not, people answer with price or service, but these are just XY factors that can be easily copied, duplicated leaving you with no differentiating factor at all!
‘X’ stands for business-as-usual, a product like other products with no differentiating factor other than price. When you persistently offer ‘X’ to the world, the world responds by asking for more ‘X’ at a lower cost. This use to be the case with common everyday products. Ice cream, bread, salt, vinegar, etc. The reason is you have many competitors, offering the same product with very little difference other than price.
To compete in the industry, most businesses try to add logical value. That’s the ‘Y’ factor. But 'Y' is easy to copy. It’s making ice cream, but now offering it in Vanilla, Chocolate or Strawberry. There is no ownership to this, and no brand equity, as most ice cream competitors would soon have identical flavors in better packaging and at a slightly lower price. Competing in an ‘X’ ‘Y’ world can be an exhausting, daunting challenge, with very little reward, brand equity, or customer loyalty.
The ability to break from the world of average margins, little brand equity, and customer loyalty lies in your ‘Z’ factor. The ‘Z’ is the unique value a business can create and breakaway from the business-as-usual notion. The ‘Z’ is the unique, brandable factor that a company can take ownership of, market, and create value and loyalty in customers!
 Ben & Jerry offered a good quality ice cream, as did several of their competitors. They were available in several successful grocery chains, as were several of their competitors. They also offered a variety of ‘Y’ flavors to consumers, as did their competitors. What Ben & Jerry realized is to propel themselves ahead of the competition, to carve out a niche to capture a unique part of the market, and take ownership of it, it would take more than just statewide publicity stunts! They carved out a niche of history and began coming up with wacky flavours of ice cream, brand them and take ownership of them. Today, flavour names like Marsha Marsha Marshmallow, Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey, Half Baked and Chocolate Fudge Brownie packaged in outrageously loud containers own a piece of the market that no company could take.
In business the ‘Z’ is the most memorable factor in a company – your zfactor! It is more than innovation – it’s the deciding factor on whom to choose when looking for a product. It is the creation, invention, and ideation of new, unexpected value that creates brand loyalty. It comes with over-investing in some aspect of value and eliminating what’s unnecessary. This is yours to own, yours to be known for, this is your zfactor.
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