I was at a Marketing seminar recently where the speaker asserted the idea that if you aren’t the best, you’re the cheapest or somewhere in between. This statement Stuck with me because I realized only one can be the best and many do not have the option to be the cheapest, which leaves a whole lot in between. So, what does it mean if your Brand is in between?

Being in between is not undesirable. It is not a death sentence for your brand. It is, however, a challenge—a challenge that requires you to identify precisely what you are the best at because you are the best at something. You have customers, and those customers have selected your product or service over all of the others. That means your brand was the best choice in that moment for that customer. Why? You may not be the best at everything, but you are clearly the best at something. What?

This isn’t a question to ask yourself or your colleagues. This is a question to ask your customers. What need did your brand satisfy for them? What problem did your brand solve? You’ll be amazed and surprised by the answers you’ll get. Sometimes what may seem to be the most insignificant feature of your product can turn out to be the very detail that keeps your customers coming back. It may not even be the product itself but instead, the person who delivers the product or answers the phone. Whatever “it” is, it’s there, waiting for you to find it and bring it to light, so new customers can find it, too.

You may not be the best at everything, but you are clearly the best at something. What?

This quest for your best is about more than marketing. It’s about the connections you make before the marketing begins that will inform your marketing and make it great. Connecting to your customers and learning what matters to them is the only way you’ll uncover what’s truly best about your brand. This is precisely the approach we take with our clients. Our first priority is always to connect with them—to understand who they are, their needs, and the problems they’re trying to solve, so we can bring our best to the relationship. Connecting is especially critical for our B2B clients because so many different buyers are part of the dynamic. How they each interact with a product or service varies because they all have different needs, and it’s our job to identify and understand those needs if we want to provide the best branding program and communicate the right messages.

Connecting with your customers and understanding how to better deliver what they need is the difference between being stuck in the middle and standing out among the rest.

What are you the best at?

Go find out.

Do you own your brand space? If not…