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Key Takeaways
- Differentiation matters more than trying to appeal to everyone. Successful businesses, like the strongest college applicants, stand out by excelling in a specific area rather than trying to do everything well.
- Build a narrative that runs through every aspect of your business. Communicate what makes you unique, and reinforce that message through your website, thought leadership and customer interactions.
- Demonstrate your value rather than simply claiming it. The goal isn’t merely to give someone a reason to say yes. Instead, it’s to make them afraid to say no.
Every December, while many of Ivy Coach‘s students celebrate acceptances to their first-choice colleges, our inbox buzzes with emails from families whose children weren’t so fortunate. These students didn’t work with us. They received deferrals or denials and want to know what went wrong.
We call these sessions PostMortems. And, boy, do we find mistakes. Some took AP Statistics instead of a real math class (it’s no substitute for BC Calculus or beyond!). Others pursued scattershot extracurricular activities that impressed nobody. Still others wrote essays about sports, music, community service, grandparents, travel or illness. We call these third-rail topics.
But the biggest mistake is almost always the same. Despite boasting competitive profiles, they failed to tell a singular, compelling story that dared an admissions officer not to admit them. The lesson applies equally to business.
Colleges don’t want well-rounded students
Here’s what families misunderstand about elite college admissions. Highly selective universities aren’t seeking well-rounded students. Instead, they’re building a well-rounded class comprised of singularly talented individuals.
They want the extraordinary poet, the groundbreaking science researcher, the recruited soccer player. Together, these students form a well-rounded class. The applicant who dabbles in everything but excels at nothing? That’s a tougher sell. Businesses make the same mistake.
Stop trying to be everything to everybody
I see competitors making the business equivalent of the well-rounded applicant’s mistake. Some advertise that recent college graduates can guide students through the highly selective college admissions process. But who’s going to fork over substantial sums for advice from a kid fresh out of college, maybe even sleeping on a futon? Others tout parents who navigated admissions for their own children. Congratulations! So did thousands of other parents.
Neither proposition establishes distinguishing excellence. Neither makes a prospective client think, I’d be crazy to take my business anywhere else. That’s the reaction every entrepreneur should strive to elicit.
Your business needs a narrative through-line
My mom, a high school college counselor, founded Ivy Coach 35 years ago as one of the earliest entrants into private college counseling. She recognized that families needed expertise to help students distinguish themselves.
Today, Ivy Coach’s consultants are former admissions officers from America’s most selective universities, including Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Dartmouth, Penn, Brown, Columbia, UChicago, Duke, WashU, Northwestern and more. They once evaluated the very applications our students now submit. They know what impresses admissions officers because they were admissions officers themselves. And we’ve trained them to help students present singular narratives that make admissions committees take notice. That’s our distinguishing excellence, backed by our track record.
But a compelling story isn’t merely something you declare. Instead, it’s something you demonstrate. If your business’s website looks like it was designed when dial-up internet was cutting-edge, like many of our competitors, what story does that tell? If you’re not publishing thought leadership or offering original perspectives, what distinguishes you? How could we credibly promise to position students extraordinarily well if we didn’t hold our business to the same standard?
Storytelling is in our business’ DNA
My storytelling roots predate running a business in elite college admissions. I worked in Hollywood, including as head of development for Kelsey Grammer’s company at Lionsgate Television, where we acquired and developed the rights to books we believed could be adapted into extraordinary television series and films. At the time, countless producers walked into studios pitching original ideas. The challenge wasn’t having a great story. Rather, it was making executives believe your story was the one they couldn’t afford to pass up.
Whether it was the economic theories in Freakonomics as the foundation for a police procedural, the rights to an F. Scott Fitzgerald story reimagined as a science-fiction mystery or abolitionist John Brown’s failed 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry that helped propel America toward the Civil War, our task was to make executives see what others hadn’t. We brought John Brown’s story to Showtime. We dared them to pass. They didn’t. The resulting production, The Good Lord Bird, won a Peabody Award.
There’s a reason Anthony Zuiker, the creator of CSI, named his production company Dare to Pass after enduring rejection after rejection in Hollywood. He understood that the goal wasn’t merely to pitch a good idea but rather to make saying no feel like a terrible mistake.
The same principle applies whether you’re pitching a television series, building a company or applying to Harvard. Everyone has something to pitch. The magic is telling your story so compellingly that passing on it feels like the bigger risk.
Give them a reason they can’t say no
Every December, when disappointed applicants who did not work with us arrive for PostMortems with Ivy Coach, the problem becomes obvious. Their applications overflow with accomplishments and self-congratulation, when the objective is to make admissions officers root for them, not roll their eyes. What they lack is a reason to choose them over everyone else.
Too many businesses suffer from the same problem. They never answer the question that matters most: Why you? So ask yourself: What’s the singular story that sets your business apart? Does every prospective client interaction reinforce it? Don’t just tell your audience why you’re good. Show it. Dare them to say no.
Key Takeaways
- Differentiation matters more than trying to appeal to everyone. Successful businesses, like the strongest college applicants, stand out by excelling in a specific area rather than trying to do everything well.
- Build a narrative that runs through every aspect of your business. Communicate what makes you unique, and reinforce that message through your website, thought leadership and customer interactions.
- Demonstrate your value rather than simply claiming it. The goal isn’t merely to give someone a reason to say yes. Instead, it’s to make them afraid to say no.
Every December, while many of Ivy Coach‘s students celebrate acceptances to their first-choice colleges, our inbox buzzes with emails from families whose children weren’t so fortunate. These students didn’t work with us. They received deferrals or denials and want to know what went wrong.
We call these sessions PostMortems. And, boy, do we find mistakes. Some took AP Statistics instead of a real math class (it’s no substitute for BC Calculus or beyond!). Others pursued scattershot extracurricular activities that impressed nobody. Still others wrote essays about sports, music, community service, grandparents, travel or illness. We call these third-rail topics.
But the biggest mistake is almost always the same. Despite boasting competitive profiles, they failed to tell a singular, compelling story that dared an admissions officer not to admit them. The lesson applies equally to business.