Number 2 BRAND

 Number 2 BRAND

Every business in its own has their well defined KSPs & with experience the investors will continue to make decisions that will help the business to sustain their sales and follow a profound YOY growth pattern.

Yes we are talking about sales & not about profits or about growth, that determines the market positioning of the product & brand.

So in order to understand how the Number 2 works, we may try to study what are the least of the factors that helps any product & its brand to be that Number 1.

What are the key contributors to get to the top of any segment?

A) Quality Consistency

B) Brand Value, within business partners as well as end users

C) Products offers value for Money

D) Products has sustainable awareness

E) Balanced demand & supply

F) Profitability for every stakeholder

G) Offering product ranges with continued innovation

H) Genuine after sales support

I) Recognized CSR

J) Employees are their assets

Let us now get into details of these aspects of any business that may be a key contributor to remain on top of their segment.

A) Quality Consistency : Every product being offered must have an acceptable quality standard, as such that the product experience across every user must by and large remain the same, tell what is it inside & that is exactly what must remain inside of the product all along.

So if you are making & selling a pen for 1 USD, make it loud & clear that the quality of that 1 USD pen is going to meet A,B & C standards, now here if the consumer is interested in more than A B & C, then they must be ready to go for other products with higher value.

And if you are offering another pen for 10 USD, make it known that it has everything from A to Z in it & let it be true. DO NOT LIE!

B) Brand Value, within business partners as well as end users : Consistent efforts & systematic brand awareness campaigns have to be organized to pitch the KSPs of the products to the business partners as well as the end users as such that top of the mind awareness is always maintained across the broad, do not allow anyone to forget your brand, irrespective of their needs & capability to buy your products.

So be it an educated professional with a good pay package or a roadside seller, they must remember that whenever they are going to buy that very product it must be from your portfolio only. Let them go and ask for your brand instead of asking for the product, I want an ifone, I want a zamsung, not that I want a mobile phone.

Besides that, business partners must be able to trust with your consistency in ensuring that their own business interest while promoting your products also serves well & at all the times. Business channel partners profitability must be sustained irrespectively.

C) Product Offers Value for Money : 1 USD pen serves its purpose in its own way & so do that 10 USD pen will have its features, any modern day consumer is heavily loaded with information about whatever they are planning to buy, if they haven't googled it yet they might do it right then before buying it, so every product design, quality standards & application for the product must always offer right value for the investment of every consumer, while must also provide that necessary confidence for the retailers when they are selling your products.

D) Product has sustainable awareness : Along with the per capita income that is on rise now, the options available in the market & segment are barely managing their market share in the midst of cut throat competition, ifone do not have to do crazy advertising campaigns before they are able to bring people to stand & wait in queues during their new version launches, the have earned a name in the segment with their persistent awareness about their products getting better & giving more & more profound experiences to their customers. Their products offer the consumer aspects & features of technology that they would have not imagined. They have been able to create that impression about their product so mesmerizing that while those who are using it are already on the top of the world, but those who are not using it are dreaming to use it one day & are working towards saving & getting one for themselves very soon. You are poor & pathetic if you are not holding a ifone, that is the level of awareness it has created on every human on this planet.

E) Balanced Demand & Supply : What could be the best example of the terminology, Diamonds. Once again a product that has been made to be a custom & trend so precisely over the years, that today, every woman has at least this one dream for herself that the man of her life will present her a gift of Diamond. Hardly does the masses know that Diamond is available in abundance, just like Oil & Coal, but there is a serious control over its production, only a handful of the Organizations own all the available active & even future mines of Diamonds. Any product that is not in the segment to create a monopoly like Diamonds, will have to revolve around a robust demand & supply system. Whatever demand that the product has been able to create at that point in time will soon fade away or be met with the competitors response, hence the supply of the products has to remain prompt as any gap will be filled with the alternative solutions.

F) Profitable for every stakeholder : Any ordinary product, FMCG or Consumer Durables, there are lots of direct & indirect small or large businesses that are engaged in the process of forming the final product. Hence the entire business costing, promotion may have to be designed in such a way that every other contributing business for the end product must be able to have sustainable profit sharing with whatever products that they are offering. For example raw material suppliers, packaging material supplies, logistics service providers, bankers, solicitors, tax & law enforcement agencies, technical support providers, spare parts & consumables suppliers, everyone must make their bread & butter out of the product you are selling to earn your share of profits. That is everyone must take home a win-win solution & to attain that a very critical & balanced ecosystem of profit sharing has to be designed & followed religiously. Take any business around you, a brand that has been in existence for over 3 to 4 decades, they are practicing the same unflinchingly. 

G) Offering product range with continued innovation : With the given technological evolution, it is now inevitable to run any sustainable business without offering innovative solutions in every given segment. Mobile phone that has an average use of 2 to 5 hours in a day have to be changed every 2 years if not earlier, a car that one might be using for couple of hours in a day will become obsolete for its features within 4 to 5 years, so even if the car might be working as good as new, the latest version would be offering features that automatically a car that still have a service of over another 10 years left may appear to be useless & old. You cannot just keep pushing the same product in the market that was discovered & produced before 3 or 4 decades, you are shooting in your own leg & will soon run down the entire business.

Make sure that every two years your product has a new feature, makeover or benefits for the consumer, remain invested for inhouse research & development to have a robust plan with innovative solutions to be offered for the coming decade.

H) Genuine after sales support : End users, consumers are the most crucial feedback source. Best is to engage in learning their experience while they use your products, gather information across the regions, age & economical groups, take their feedback to reinvent your products. But if the same is not possible at least make sure that there is a very strong customer relationship process within the operation that can take up each & every complaint or feedback to not only resolve the same within shortest of period but to ensure that the confidence on the brand & its products remains instilled for the channel partner & the end user. Deploy real time CAPA. Let there be a clear image of your brand that your warranty & guarantee on your products are honored & that their complaints are taken as an opportunity to get better. And make sure that the same errors & mistakes are not repeated. Automobile manufacturers have recalled thousands of units from the road to rectify or replace components that were not serving the purpose, least any business who wants to establish its name as a brand must do is to not send any defective products or inferior quality product into the market.

I) Recognized CSR : Paying legal fees, taxes, complying with health, safety & environmental norms is the least that any business can do for the community they are operating from. Besides it, if possible offering clean drinking water, subsidized electricity, regular health camps & medicines are some of the most fundamental responsibilities of every business to try & fulfill. Above which as & when required help the Government & their efforts to make sure that the people of the community are having good living standards. All the CSR efforts must be genuine & auditable, not just publicity stunts. These CSR initiatives must be recognized by the community & over a period of time improved the overall well being of the entire community. 

J) Employees are their assets : Contrary to the modern belief, if we carefully try to analyze history, empires have been built & destroyed based on the treatments & welfare policies that their rules had implemented for their Citizens. And fortunately enough the Principle of Universe or Karma is still the same. Any organization who is heavily invested in making efforts to tick in all the aspect of the business from A to I, if it choose to risk ignoring the fact that it is their employees who will still make their efforts to help them ticking right boxes for every other aspect of the business that is from A to I, may actually remain deprived from becoming that NUMBER 1. No business can ever grow or thrive if their employees are not converted into assets. If the aim of the Business is to establish itself as number 1 brand then the employees of the Organization must be also treated as the brand ambassador. Their well being, pay packages, incentives, bonuses, sponsored training, get together events, target achievement celebrations, reward systems, increment prospects, health insurance, career advancement plans all of this too may have to be Number 1 in the segment. You cannot expect to offer a package of Number 5 brand in the segment & expect the employees to take the load of converting the brand to Number 1, EVEN IF THEY ARE CAPABLE OF CONVERTING THE NUMBER 5 BRAND TO NUMBER 1, THE MENTALITY OF KEEPING THEM TIED DOWN AT NUMBER 5 WILL PLAY ITS ROLE in every other factors deciding where your brand must stand in for A to I that are inevitably responsible to make any brand NUMBER 1. Motivation of the employee that has been effectively converted into assets will determine at which number the brand will stand.

So what is Number 2 brand?

Every other brand in the same segment that is able to beat any of the above factors from A to J, let it be only one or more than just one, can easily stand at number 2 for a while. Why for a while?, Because the then number 1 who has already tasted the benefits of being the Number 1 brand will immediately readjust its course & come up with counter measures to meet or beat the options that the Number 2 is offering at that point in time.

So practically while the Number 1, keeps getting challenged by every other brand in the segment, they keep getting better when they do their course corrections, while the most dreadful fact is that there can be 500 other brands that may be enjoying the NUMBER 2 brand.

Let us understand how simple it is inside while it may look so complicated on the surface.

Let's once again take example of ifone, indisputably it is world's number 1 brand in mobile fone, while the brand remains that number 1 in the western part of the world where there are mostly developed countries,  zamsung yet another mobile fone brand enjoys a handsome positioning in eastern part of the world, where there are developing countries with population times 5 or even 6 to that of all the western countries combined.

Take a DIG into your business thinking, strategies that you generally follow & mentality to arrive at an understanding of your DNA, are you having the heart, mind & courage to become that NUMBER 1 brand, Yes then start ticking all the boxes from that A to J & continue to do that for a decade or two, before your brand can claim itself to be that Number 1 & do that over & over again to displace & leave behind every other brand in the segment that had every enjoyed being than number 1 brand.

But if your answer is NO, then prepare to accept that you are an Number 2 brand, AN ALTERNATIVE, an option that may be needed to market & promote the brand Number 1.

To offer that temporary advantage of every scheme & offer that your brand is coming up with when your brand is striving to come out of that 500 other number 2 brands and challenge the Number 1 for a while.

Note that it is not a cup of tea for every brand to become number 1 brand, hence there is no harm in doing business by staying at number 2 & working as an alternative brand.

You can still strategies in such a way that one after another you keep shaking the foundation of Number 1 brand & thereby also continue to displace the remaining 499 number brands and remain that most reasonable number 2 brand.

1) Working meticulously on your own budget & plans, being an alternative brand you can continue to roll out one scheme after another to keep meeting or even beating Number 1 brand with it.

2) As an alternative brand at any given point in time have at least one or two aspects of A to J better than that of Number 1.

3) Keep Customer & Management relationships rosy at all times. Always play the role of an learned & elder one in the family.

4) Let the customers remain in hope that soon you are going to bring out another lucrative offer.

5) Never bad mouth Number 1. Instead pick their KSPs, improvise them & implement them unapologetically. 

6) Use all the available corruption around to the advantage of your business & extend the benefits of the same to the business partners, leave all the idealistic role models, if you don't use it, are you sure that number 1 brand isn't using it, or rest of the 499 number 2 brands are not using it?

7) Do not undermine either of 499, number 2 brands, they too are every now & then replicating the same principles & getting on the top of the pyramid of number 2s. Pick the KSPs of every other number 2, that they are doing better than number 1 or even your own brand.

8) Always try to find the pain points of the business partners that are also working with Number 1, maintain an absolute clear & excellent position on those aspects of your own business. Never fail on those aspects.

9) No matter whatever cost cutting & survival tactics you are deploying in your business, NEVER COMPROMISE ON THE QUALITY, it may immediately put your entire business at number 1001, no matter how many decades you may have strived to remain at that number 2.

10) Never disclose your plans, projects or tactics before you are ready to implement them, Never forget that you are not the ONLY number 2.

11) The only aspect that can undoubtedly help to sustain an business position at Number 2 & even has the potential to take the entire business to become an Number 1 brand, is the vision & intent of the investor to convert their Employees into assets, TREAT THE EMPLOYEES AS IF YOUR BUSINESS IS THE ONLY NUMBER 1 BRAND & then just wait & watch for how long it takes for the brand to switch the position from number 2 to NUMBER 1.

Number 2 brand is still better than the number 3 & number 1001 brands.