Confused? Let me explain …
People who are specialists are perceived to do one thing really well. The hand doctor who repaired my torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL; i.e., skiers thumb) holds himself out to be a hand-and-digit specialist. He has attended college, then med school, then served his residency, then probably served in some sort of post-residency program under another hand specialist, all the while learning about carpals and metacarpals and learning how to fix them. He has many years in his own practice and has performed thousands of surgeries and procedures (in fact, before he performed my surgery he couldn’t even tell me how many UCL surgeries he had done because he had lost count). Even in how he spoke to me, in relaxed, reassuring tones, I could tell he loved what he does and had every reason to expect that my thumb would turn out like those he had worked on before – perfectly healed and functioning within 5 months. I never doubted him, and my repaired thumb now works better than the other one.
So, after knowing all that about this doctor, if a friend told you that he was also one of the area’s experts on breeding bull terriers, you’d probably believe it.
Why is that? There’s nothing about what I have described to you to indicate he knows anything about bull terriers, or even dogs for that matter. And even if I did mention he had a pet, there’s a huge difference between a pet owner and a master breeder who has volumnous knowledge about a certain breed.
So why did you believe it?
Because once someone is seen as an expert in one thing, it’s easier to believe that they could become an expert in someting else, that they have the ability, intelligence and drive to develop another expertise. You figure, they have the knack to become an expert in one thing … why not another? It certainly seems plausible.
Here’s what this has to do with branding. Most companies feel compelled to say they can to 500 different things really well, but most people roll their eyes at such claims. That’s because nobody can really excel at 500 things, and because such broad-based aptitude is rare, even if you could do 500 things really well, very few people would believe it.
However, it is easily conceivable for a company to do one thing really well, and it’s much easier to prove this than showing you can do 500 things well. And once you have earned a reputation as an specialist in one area, suddenly people are more apt to give you the benefit of the doubt if someone were to attribute other abilities or talents to you. Suddenly you have become overrated by the marketplace. And this is a good thing, because you don’t have to brag and boast how multi-talented your company is. People just assume it because you are a specialist … an expert.
