What does best in the world mean?
Seth Godin poses that question in “The Dip” episode of his Startup School podcast. The concept of “the dip” is interesting enough to be explored at length another time, but my attention was arrested with the idea of being the best in the world.
To quickly summarize, Godin defines the terms in this way and in this order:
The world: the only little place your customers or clients care about (geographic, cultural, etc.)
The best: the one your customer or client will pick for his or her needs or budget
The idea of providing the product or service most perfectly suited for the customers or clients in your world flies in the face of the oft-touted need to win in every market in the world.
And I think that’s a good thing. Clearly defining a viable niche is a valuable first step for any business. Understanding where and with whom you can compete allows you to focus on what matters and keeps you from stressing over things that don’t.
We’ve been around five years now. I definitely think we have the talent and know-how to compete with agencies that have been around fifty years, but there are things that they have that we don’t, which means their “best” and “world” are going to be different than ours. And that’s ok.
As we continue to grow (and the same applies to you as your business grows), your “best” will change and your “world” will expand. Right now you might serve small businesses in a fifteen-mile radius, but in ten years you might be serving Fortune 1000 companies around the country.
But in order to do that, you always have to put your best foot forward wherever you walk in the world.
Jason Thompson is co-founder and principal of Jackson, Mississippi-based marketing and communications firm Fahrenheit Creative Group, LLC. A graduate of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi, Jason has spent more than ten years honing his design and development skills to be able to lead a team that crafts creative that works for nonprofits, government agencies and mid-sized businesses.
