Don't Strive to Be Different. Be Better. (Now That's Different.)

“It's very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.”

—Jony Ive, Chief Design Officer, Apple

Be the Best at What Matters Most—the Only Strategy You'll Ever Need. That's the name of my last book, and it's a bold statement. I wrote the book partly in response to the growing popularity of “wow” factors and “being different” as strategies for success in business. My work with hundreds of businesses tells me that pursuing a strategy of being different almost always turns out to be a wild goose chase that gets you nowhere. It also gets you beaten in the market by competitors who focus on being better.

Let me take the core idea from that book even further and make another bold statement: Better beats different. I would submit to you that this is not my opinion, but the reality of the marketplace.

I'm all for a good “wow” factor, and certainly all for being different, but not at all for the strategy of being different. If you want to be a kind of different that counts for something, be better. That's the greatest differentiator in business. The great recession that began in 2008 caused lots of business leaders to look for a way out of their business troubles. Rather than take the path of being better, many of them took the “wow” path, with the hopes that buzzers and bells would create customers and increase business.

Not the Most Unusual Pickup Truck

You can try to compete with your buzzers and bells, but they will be copied by the time you wake up tomorrow. The marketplace makes it incredibly clear: The hardest thing in the world to copy is quality. The most challenging thing to deliver is real value. But that's where the game is won and lost, so that's the place to play. Create value. Be better.

Consumers haven't made the most unusual pickup truck in the world the bestseller, they make the Ford F-Series the best seller for 33 years. It's not a particularly unique truck. Not really different. It's just the one considered the highest quality, best value by the most people. It's a really, really good truck. And that is the differentiating factor. Quality always wins.

The most unusual team doesn't win the Super Bowl, the World Series, or NCAA March Madness. The best team wins. Get a unique uniform—the other team can buy them, too. But have the best players—that can't be copied. What made Michael Jordan different? He was better. That's really, really hard to copy.

Look at Interbrand's list of the top 100 brands in the world. The companies listed there aren't particularly unusual or unique except in that they are…well…the top 100 brands in the world. They are the best. The also-rans are trying to find an “angle” or a way to be different. Won't help. The only “different” that really counts in the market is value.

Ask Coke or the Toyota Corolla. Different? Not really. Just better. There are lots of soft drinks and certainly lots of compact cars out there. People are drawn to quality and value like metal to, well, a magnet. Being different for the sake of being different will get you short-term business at best. Quality is very, very hard to copy, and it has a long shelf life. Buzzers and bells wear off. Usefulness never does.

The Connection between “Better” and “Distinctive”

Scott McKain is a longtime friend and an expert at helping companies create distinction in every phase of business. He teaches the Ultimate Customer Experience.

I wanted Scott's perspective on the whole idea of being better versus being different. Here's our conversation:

1. Joe: Scott, what would you say is the connection between being better and being distinctive?
2. Scott: I would suggest that it would be impossible for an organization—or even an individual professional—to be considered as “distinctive” without being demonstrably better than the competition in at least one area that is of primary importance to customers.
   1. It's an old example, but when Apple introduced the iPod, its success was based upon a fundamental superiority it possessed—it was easier for customers to use than other music players in the marketplace at that time.
   2. Zappos, to use another oft-cited example, is an online retailer—which makes them one of millions. However, they have repeatedly shown how they are demonstrably better at customer service than the competition. So much so, in fact, that Amazon thought it was worth somewhere close to a billion dollars to acquire the company rather than compete with it—and to learn how and why Zappos' customer experience is delivered in a manner superior to Amazon's.
   3. Just being better doesn't ensure that you will become distinctive in the marketplace—but you can't become distinctive without demonstrating to customers that there is something about you that is superior to the other alternatives they have.
3. Joe: Okay, I'm going to play devil's advocate here and take the side of being different as the way to go. In a marketplace where people see sameness and everything is considered a commodity, what good does it do to be better at the same old thing as everyone else? Isn't being different the best way to stand out? How does just being better get the market's attention?
4. Scott: First, consider this: Coffee was a commodity, but that didn't stop Starbucks. You can get water out of a fountain for free—but that didn't stop Evian. The tired old excuse that “we are in a commodity business and all our customers want is a cheap price” is only made by tired, old organizations unwilling to make the effort to stand out.
   1. Let's use the water example: How do you make “different” water? Certainly you could manufacture a new soft drink or sports drink—but H₂O is always going to be the formula for water. The only way to stand out and attract customers to pay for something that they can get for free is to be better. Better tasting, more convenient packaging, more healthy because of purity and lack of chemicals, and more accessible would be great starting points.
   2. So how do you get the market's attention? Tell your “better” story.
   3. What is often overlooked is that while different may not always be better, better is always different. If I have a better product because of the reasons stated earlier, I have established that what I'm asking the customer to buy is different—and superior—to other alternatives. If I focus on being better, it's an essential step toward creating distinction. Different will take care of itself.
   4. Finally, better breaks the mold of the same old thing. Enterprise didn't say, “How can we be different from Hertz?” Instead, they asked, “How can we make the car rental experience better for our customers?” They had the idea to bring the car to the customer instead of making the customer go to the rental company's location.
   5. By bringing the car to the customer—“At Enterprise, we pick you up”—they changed the game and became their industry's largest player. Certainly, I'm still doing the same old thing in renting a car. However, by finding a way to do it better and different, Enterprise created distinction for their organization.

Being Better Means Innovation

If you happen to think that having a “better” or value creation strategy isn't dynamic or innovative, think again. It's the one strategy that drives innovation that attracts business. The only reason to innovate is to create value for the customer. Everything else is pointless.

You might have a think lab or “skunkworks” dedicated to free thinking, unfettered imagination, and over-the-edge experimentation. Good for you. I'm for it. And the ultimate purpose of all of that free thinking is to lead to improvements and innovations that benefit a customer.

The best at anything are in constant forward motion, always moving forward toward “make it even better,” always innovating in the interest of creating value for the customer. In fact, it's impossible to sustain a quality or value advantage without that constant innovation. The bar of customer expectations will always be raised, and at least some of your competition will always be trying to match and beat your value.

To stay in front, all you have to do is work harder, be smarter, and be better.

It's the path less taken because it's the most challenging route to success. But the clichés are true. There is no short cut to success.