What Uniqueness Can Do to a Company - The Benjamin Hotel
We've all heard about why we should have a point of difference or uniqueness and what it should do for us, but how many businesses have we actually been told about that have been successful because of their point of difference or uniqueness.
Well in this case study we'll be going over The Benjamin Hotel in New York. They are a businessman-orientated hotel and guess what are they well known for. A good nights sleep! You may be thinking why didn't they focus on Internet connection? Why not great food and service during every hour of the day? I bet you could easily make a MASSIVE list of problems The Benjamin Hotel could come up with to solve to create their own uniqueness. They could have chosen to focus on them all, but would that be as effective? The simple answer is no!
The reason why it's a point of difference is to make it DIFFERENT to everyone else's. You should only ever choose one point of difference because it makes it easy to make your business focus on just one point, it makes it easy for customers to be able to quickly recognize why you're different and why you're better than the competitors and also allows your business to revolve around this uniqueness effortlessly.
Here's an actual review The Benjamin Hotel received from the New York Times.
The Benjamin Hotel in Midtown Manhattan helped invent the position of sleep concierge nearly seven years ago when its concierge staff noticed that more and more of their guest questions involved sleep. It is one of only a few hotels to offer the service, with the Fairmont in Washington and the Soho Metropolitan Hotel in Toronto offering similar services.
Steps away from the No. 6 subways train and Lexington Avenue in full havoc, The Benjamin has deployed an array of anti-insomnia weapons.
They include guest rooms that being on the fifth floor, high above street noise, with soundproof windows; luxury sheets; aromatherapy massages; satin sleep masks; tips for "executive" naps; a menu of 11 special pillows, including the "Snore-No-More"; and special sleep inducing foods, like banana bread with peanut butter.
The hotel, at 50th Street and Lexington, has a guarantee, said the sleep concierge, Anya Orlanska, who speaks with a slight Polish accent.
"You must sleep well of you will get your money back," she said.
Jennifer King, a technology consultant originally from Chicago stayed at The Benjamin Hotel last month. She did so because Ms. Orlanska had done a deft job of finding a good hairdresser for Ms. King's Mother when Ms. Orlanska was the converge at the New York Palace Hotel.
Ms. King noticed the pillow menu and other offerings, but she said, "I didn't think it was going to be that big of a deal."
A sufferer of back pain, Ms. King said she had never been able to sleep for more than three hours a night without getting up.
But with a firm mattress and a special pillow with self-molding foam developed by NASA, she was able to sleep for eight hours, she said. "And this was during the United Nation general Assembly and police escorts and traffic and people all around," Ms. King said. "I couldn't believe it."
The article continues but you get the point. The Benjamin Hotel has only had one customer claim the money back guarantee and that was when someone was jack hammering one night. He got his money back but he was the only one out of several hundred that got their money back.
So go now and focus on your point of difference. Make sure there is only one point though.
Not two,
Not three,
Not four,
Just one.
If you don't already have a point of difference but want to be unique, here is an easy way to find your own sense of uniqueness!
Don't think of your current business when you think why it's different. Don't think in the present, think in the future, for example. HOW can my business be different? What do I want to do that could make my business different.
It's easy once you get a big list down, but don't be scared and stick with a general point of difference. If you're a baker, then instead of focusing on, "My bread is fresh." Focus on, "My bread is so fresh, if it is not bought within two hours, then it is thrown out." That's what you should be aiming for! Be as unique and risky as you can!
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Posted by Steven. Posted In : Case Study
