What is your unfair advantage in business? Everyone has one. It could be related to your past work experience, your college degree or your spouse’s unique abilities. What is it that helps your event planning business that your competitors don’t have?

Here are competitive advantages you may not have thought of:

My spouse is an accountant. Great! Instead of having to pay a professional accountant for bookkeeping, financial business planning and taxes, can your spouse take on this roll? If so, this gives you an advantage because you can put the money you would have spent on those tasks into marketing, education or some other business detail. It also helps because your spouse can answer financial questions whenever they arise.

I majored in theatre and production. This is a great background because you may have experience in set design and productions. This is valuable experience you can use to sell yourself over your competition, especially if you offer event design service.

I have a full time job. Many planners see this as a competitive disadvantage. However, if you sell it correctly, it can be a positive marketing tool. For example, when you still have a full time job outside of your event planning business, you can be even more selective about the clients you work with since you aren’t relying on your planning business to pay your mortgage. Also, you may have more time for each client since you take on fewer events than someone who does this full time and can spend your lunch hours and weekends on client work. Having a full time income from your day job means you can invest all of your business profits back into your education which can be a selling point to potential clients.

I worked in marketing. If you have a marketing background with real world experience, it will instantly put you years ahead of other event planning companies that have zero marketing experience. Put those marketing skills to work for your business or event planning career.

My background is in blogging and writing. If this is your background, you could easily create the best event planning blog in your market. Blogging and writing skills can easily be a competitive advantage if you use them in your business or to jump start your career in the events industry.

These are just a few examples of unfair advantages that you may have. What unique experiences or circumstances do you have? How can you use those in your business? Or, what experience or circumstance seemed like a disadvantage that could actually help if you thought of it in a different way? Please share one of these “unfair advantages” in the comments!