5 Proven Ways to Have a Competitive Advantage in Your Career

The biggest challenge for every professional in today's global economy is to stay relevant in a world that's constantly changing around us. We are ALL susceptible to these changes regardless of your age or geography. The proliferation of technology has made the change more rapid causing disruptions in markets, the rise of new business models, automation of jobs and rendering many skills completely irrelevant. Decades ago it was typical to work at one company for your entire career, with job security, a pension and a gold watch upon retirement. Today's workforce is much more fluid, there's less loyalty and people are living longer, with multiple jobs and full career changes.

There's a direct correlation between life expectancy and the number of jobs held. In 1950, people around the world lived to be about 48 years old on average, compared to about 72 years old in 2017. At the same time, baby boomers (born 1957 to 1964) held an average of 12 jobs between the ages of 18 and 52, with an average job tenure of 4.2 years. While we are living longer, and having more career changes, the jobs we have are being reshaped and in my cases, eliminated entirely. According to McKinsey, it's estimated that 60 percent of jobs could be automated and up to 30 percent of current work hours will be automated. This means that we are constantly needing to acquire new skills and find new ways to differentiate ourselves so we can stay competitive in the ever-evolving marketplace. The average half-life of a learned skill is a mere five years and only 18 months for a tech skill because of automation.

Creating and sustaining a competitive advantage in your career takes thoughtfulness, reflection, strategy, and execution. Over the past decade, I have studied and implemented all of the following competitive advantage methods that have helped elevate my career. I've also worked with others who have used these in order to stand out and rise to the top of their industries. It's important to remember that creating an advantage is temporary so you have to constantly evolve instead of remaining stagnant. It takes hard work and courage to evolve multiple times throughout your life.

1. Be the best at what you do for a specific audience. In the book "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, he wrote that in order to become an expert in your field, you have to invest 10,000 hours of time. Now, what Gladwell doesn't mention is how to focus your expertise so that you can serve an underserved audience with a skillset that they need right now. Just being an expert isn't enough to stand out in a sea of experts globally. Instead, focus your expertise to serve a specific industry, profession, geography, gender or age group. For example, you can be a LinkedIn expert serving real estate agents in Newton, Massachusetts (where I'm from). By having this focus, you're competing for a customer base of 800 real estate brokers in Newton instead of 1.3 million in all of the United States. The more niche audience you focus on, the easier it is to create a competitive advantage and grow your customer base. Not all 800 brokers know how to leverage LinkedIn or have an expert they can count on, but should because it's valuable to their businesses. The more you serve this group, the more case studies and references you'll be able to obtain, which will allow you to expand outside of your niche in the future if you so wish. At the same time, you'll be honing your craft because you're focused instead of spread too thin. By taking a niche and staying focused on one audience, you'll have much more time to spend networking with brokers in Newton, and those relationships will blossom into new customers. After building a strong foundation, you can always expand your reach. For instance, once you've served a few dozen brokers in Newton, you can hire other consultants to help you expand into other cities.
2. Take the skills you developed in your industry and leverage them in a completely different industry where those same skills are both rare and valuable. My biggest realization over the past year is that I was able to grow my brand very quickly because I had taken my marketing, branding, communication and social media skills that I developed in the marketing field and then leveraged them in human resources. In the marketing field, my skills were common, but in HR they were rare and becoming more valuable. If you find yourself having trouble standing out, then think about what other industries you can serve with the skills you already have. There are a lot of underserved markets that you either haven't been exposed to or haven't sought out that could benefit from what you have to offer. By staying in a field where your skills are common and/or required, it's hard to separate yourself and maintain job security because there will always be others who are willing to do your job for less money. To create a competitive advantage, you need to be creative in how you position yourself. For instance, if you're a therapist, there's an incredible opportunity to work as a consultant or in-house as a company that is investing in mental health services for employees (one of my 2020 workplace trends) or to be in human resources because their job requires a lot of empathy, understanding and communication skills. Think outside of your industry in order to create an advantage for yourself.
3. Position yourself in areas that are high growth but relatively low competition. You can get a competitive advantage by researching, learning and meeting people in high growth fields, industries and countries. The highest growth countries by GDP are the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, China, India and Japan. This means that if you relocate to these countries now, you may struggle to adjust to their cultures and business practices, but you'll be positioning yourself to take advantage of their growth. I recently had a friend move from America to Singapore for this very reason. While adjusting to a new country has been challenging, the opportunity to grow is much greater if he's able to establish himself over time. Aside from moving to a new country, which may terrify many of us, you can invest your time in high growth industries that are still relatively new and uncharted. I'll give you three examples of markets that are high growth so you can see the potential for getting involved in new areas that you might not have experience in, but do have an opportunity to learn and grow in them. The artificial intelligence market was valued at $21.5 billion in 2018 and is set to reach $190.6 billion over the next five years due to the adoption of cloud-based applications, the demand for virtual assistants and the access to big data. The virtual reality market is expected to grow from $7.9 billion to $44.7 billion in the next five years due to the affordability of devices, advancements of technology and interest in the entertainment sector. The blockchain technology market was valued at $1.2 billion in 2018 and is expected to grow to $23.3 billion by 2023 due to venture capital investments, lower ownership cost, quicker transactions and more global adoption. The first step in positioning yourself in these markets is to read as much as possible about them (books, articles, podcasts, courses, etc.) and meet people who already focus on them. Then, start writing about them and developing the skills in order to find a job or start a business where you can add value to the industry. Over time, people will know that you're an expert in one of these fields and will think of you when opportunities surface. As the markets grow, so does your value and your ability to capitalize on them.
4. Develop a network of key contacts in your industry. It's who you know, who they know and who knows you. Your network is your net worth. We hear these phrases all the time, but it's important to take them seriously. In my early 20s, I had the foresight to invest thousands of hours building my network without knowing exactly how it would help me in the future. I would say to myself, "I want to know all the leaders in my industry". To accomplish that ambitious goal, I made a list of all the top authors, executives, gurus and experts that I felt like I needed to know. The key driver for me to network with them was that I was dedicated to being in the industry for my entire life so I could justify the time spent meeting everyone. After making a list, I decided to interview one a week to get to know them better, promote their work and have the association. Over time, it became easier to meet higher profile people because I could point to everyone I had already talked to and start making the connections between them all, realizing that successful people know other successful people. Over a decade later, I'm still connecting with upcoming and established players in my industry because I had established the habit when I was younger. A network of key contacts in your industry is a major competitive advantage because it's easier to get a larger following, traction for your idea, a business partner and customers when you can rely on others for support. A network can give you credibility, referrals and confidence to get a job or build a business.
5. Create intellectual property (IP) for yourself. One of the most valuable assets in business is IP because it can be leveraged in multiple ways and for a long duration of time. The Walt Disney Company is almost entirely built on IP, which is worth over $193 billion as of this year. Disney can leverage their IP (Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar, etc.) across all of their platforms, including streaming services, amusement parks, action figures, video games and more. They can continue to remake movies, put out new games and do whatever they want because they have IP that has cult followings and will continue to be nostalgic as time passes. It's the IP that gives Disney the ultimate competitive advantage because it can't be copied by competitors. As professionals, we can learn a lot from Disney as we build our personal brand. By publishing your own unique content, coming up with your own unique methodologies or inventing a new product, you establish IP that you can use to start a company, get a job or secure a promotion at work. Creating IP gives you a big advantage not just today, but for the rest of your career. For instance, I leverage my books, research, podcasts and articles to build my business, spark new conversations, make new friends and grow my network. By even writing one self-published book, you can bring that to every job interview for the rest of your life and it will only help you stand out among other candidates. IP is the key to gaining a competitive advantage in your industry because it gives you credibility, something to talk about and a platform to stand on.

Subscribe to the Promote Yourself Newsletter for more workplace trends, news, research, advice, interviews and book recommendations.