What Makes YOU So Special?

Success, particularly in the specialty foods/gourmet sauce industry, depends on what niche you fill and how, exactly, you fill that niche. And in case you’re wondering, a niche is really a fancy way for asking, “Which shelf do you belong on?”
You know how the grocery store is arranged by items, grouped together, where they belong? So that the milk is with the milk, the dairy is with the diary, the spices are with the spices and, well, you get the idea. So the niche you fill is extremely important because it answers two questions for people:


1.) Where do you belong?
2.) What makes YOU so special?


And being special is what filling your niche is all about. For instance, Breyers® is known for ice cream, Vlasic® for pickles, Hellman’s® for mayonnaise and Tabasco® for hot sauce. And, while there are other players in each of those games, Breyers®, Vlasic®, Hellman’s® and Tabasco® are the big dogs in their niche and just about everybody else is running to keep up.
Of course, specializing gives you unique advantages even the big guys can’t enjoy. For instance, more preservatives give over-the-counter condiments like mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard a longer shelf-life but, according to most people, less taste.
Here is an opportunity! Here is an angle! Here is a great marketing pitch! More importantly, here is a way you can make having a petite budget, a family recipe, a small staff and less than state of the art production an advantage versus a disadvantage. Your job now is to reach those customers with news of your “specialty gourmet food” product and deliver quality every single time. That is how start-ups start-up; that is also how lifelong customers are made.
Every market, even the most competitive, has room for penetration; the reasons why one person buys my gourmet bottled barbecue sauce over, say, Heinz® or Bullseye® are wide and varied, but know that for every product, no matter how unique your niche, there IS a customer – you just have to find the right way to get to him or her.
I’ll confess, it isn’t always easy.
Starting a gourmet food business in these trying times takes not just great marketing skills but an absolute and unshakeable belief in what you do, how you do it and, frankly, the fact that you do it better (or at least differently) than anyone else in your niche – or on the shelf.
While succeeding in any business comes with its share of compromises – on everything from labels to product names to bottle size to factory speed to price point – one thing any new or successful business owner must never compromise on is his or her unique individuality in the marketplace.
Who you are really will determine how you succeed. You have to trust that you are good enough, smart enough, valuable enough and unique enough to find a home in your niche and eventually own it. Until you do that, no amount of money, time or effort can guarantee success.
Once you do that, the sky really IS the limit.
Being S.A.U.C.Y. is all about personalizing not just your product but your service, your approach, your company and your goals. This chapter provides our first ingredient of the S.A.U.C.Y. recipe, “Succeed On Your Own Terms,” by reinforcing the idea that there’s no better way to run a company than with a little sweetness and spice of your very own.
To stand out from the best, or even just the rest, you have to know what makes your product unique, what specifically makes it stand out, what sets it apart from all the rest in a way that only you can provide. The first place to look isn’t on the shelf, in the warehouse or on the line, but deep inside yourself: