A very very long time ago — decades before I started doing this incredible work — I was interviewing for a position in a company that I thought “meh” about. A job is a job when you need to pay the bills. What they didn’t tell me was it was to be a group interview.

Picture this:
I’m dressed up in fancy interview clothes. I’m nervous and clammy. I’m clutching my resume too tightly. I pause in the doorway, thinking at first that I had the wrong room despite the very clear signage.

Spoiler:
This isn’t a story about how I defeated the odds and made myself shine in a room of strangers. I didn’t get the job. I doubt I was even in the running.

However, I also didn’t have a massive freakout, running away screaming and I, to this day, consider that a win (although in retrospect that may have made a bigger impression on the hiring committee).

So.
There we were, nearly 10 of us, sat in a circle answering the same questions roundhouse-style. Each of us, answering with hesitant hope that we don’t sound exactly the same as everyone else.

“Tell us about yourself”
“Why do you think you’re a good candidate for this position?”
“What can you bring to this position that no one else can?”

In the entrepreneurial world, we refer to these as your Unique Value Proposition or your Competitive Advantage and it’s both one of the hardest questions to answer and one of the most important.

Why?

Because when you know why you’re different, why you’re special, why you show up in the very particular way that you do…you can lean on that for everything else.

If you’ve been around here for more than a hot second, you know that I can’t stand robotic answers to questions that require a very human touch.

I don’t need you to have a UVP ready to hand out to the next bro in an elevator. But I’ll make sure you know what you do and how you bring your people from here to there. That’s your methodology, it’s the action part of your Why, it’s your UVP without the bullshit.

Because once you can articulate your methodology, you have content pillars to pull from, clear service options, obvious gaps you can fill and resources you can provide. It’s foundational information you can build your business on. It’s also what you can lean on when you’re having a shit day…and when you’re hiring team members…and when you’re ready to grow but want to do so in an aligned, regenerative way.

It’s the smart answer in a group interview. The kind that makes everyone break out into a sweat. It’s confidence. It’s clarity. It’s truthfully you.

And that, my friend, is why I keep harping on about it.

So that when you metaphorically walk into that group interview (or on a call with a big prospective client), you do so feeling like the expert you already are.

Bring your shoe game.