Why Keeping your “Secret Sauce”​ a Secret is a Bad Idea

As you’re trying to drive awareness bring attention to yourself or to your company keeping your secrets behind closed doors is no longer a good strategy. Here’s why.

This comes from a super short, but important discussion from a consulting session I had a few weeks back.

Many organizations still feel like you need to be guarded in terms of sharing your “secret sauce”. I’m talking about certain trade secrets or ways of doing business. You’re worried that your competitors are going to steal your ideas and use them against you. I get it.

The consumer power shift tells a different story.

So back in the old days, prospective customers used to have to call a sales rep call a company to get information. Today, you can do all your research online or through social media.

You can investigate what companies are up to. You’re able to find a lot more of your information to make decisions before you ever initiate contact with anyone.

Think of how you make major purchases. You poke around online. You learn about what the options are. You don’t just call six companies blindly. You’ve got easy ways to do the research yourself without worrying about a salesperson hounding you, right?

As a person or company competing for the attention of would-be customers, winning the attention contest up-front is more important than ever.

Whoever delivers the most value in the earliest stages of the buying process wins the attention. That means sharing information that is valuable…perhaps some of your secret sauce.