One of the first things I ask clients to do is answer the Four Foundational Questions. The one that trips most of them up is "What Makes You Special?" This question is my way of finding out what differentiates them from the competition and why anyone would want to buy from them.
Often, the first couple answers I get are duds—if a company hasn't spent a long time thinking about this, the answer is usually something like "quality" or "good customer service." At that point, I have to stop them. Quality and good service are not selling points. They are expectations.
A customer automatically expects that what they are buying is quality, and they expect that you will give them good service. A potential customer is not going to see that you say your company values are "Quality and Good Customer Service" and say to themselves "WOW! I had no idea a company that I pay my hard-earned money for their product or service would even THINK to make it good quality and then GIVE ME GOOD SERVICE after the purchase?!?! This is insane! Imagine if everyone did that!"
Of course, I'm exaggerating. But let's get real. If the only thing that you think differentiates you from your competition is that you say your product is good quality and you promise good service after the sale, welcome to the party. EVERYONE says that, and many companies even deliver on that promise. (The ones that don't aren't going to last very long.) You are going to have to work a little harder than that to make yourself stand out from the crowd.
So, dig deeper. Think harder. There has to be something about you that makes you different from the competition. And if there isn't, well, get to work figuring out what that would be and start doing it. Because if all you have is "quality" and "service," you aren't doing anything very special at all.