If you’re a business owner like me, one of the things we all share is the desire to be the best in our line of work. Correction: the best of the best. You want to be a truly exceptional company in your industry, one that outperforms, outdelivers and outshines your competition, winning the race not just because you’ve trained and prepared for it, but because you genuinely stand out from the crowd.
In other words, you want to be the unicorn (in the figurative, not the financial, sense) among all the other horses, ponies and zebras running in your field.
That’s a big ask. Becoming an exemplary example – the ideal prototype – of what a business like yours should be seems like a pretty tall order. But what if I told you that the question of how to achieve unicorn status actually has a short answer?
I’ve been working in the public relations space for close to two decades now, and in that time of representing countless clients and receiving feedback from them as to why they keep coming back to my PR firm, here’s what I’ve come up with: To become a unicorn in your industry, do one thing really, really well.
Applying Occam’s Razor
My theory seems simplistic, I know. But the principle of parsimony (aka Occam’s Razor) tells us that oftentimes, the simplest answer is the likeliest to be true, that the simplest route is the best way there. Picking one thing to excel at and then doing it spectacularly well might seem easy, but it requires a lot of effort.
First, you have to have the capacity, the skill, to excel in that area. Additionally, you have to learn how to leverage that standout aspect to make it work for you in the marketplace – incorporating it into your branding, spotlighting it in your messaging, maybe even including it in your name. Concise as the notion is, there’s actually a lot of breadth and flexibility in it, for when it comes to selecting what you want to do better than anyone else is doing it, your choices are boundless.
For example, you could strive for superiority in the area of cleanliness, turnaround time, precision or home delivery. Your unicorn horn could be defined by the diversity of your staff, your concentration on inclusivity or your commitment to the environment. Honestly, the one thing you do really, really well could be just about anything… so long as it’s the primary thing that makes your business your own, something you can embrace without qualification and stay loyal to down the line. Here are some of my personal favorites.
Related: Stop Trying to Be the Next Unicorn — and Start Doing This
Unicorn pillar #1: Create a niche
There are lots of companies out there that, like yours, make candles. But not all of them source their materials from a specific African village or use hypoallergenic ingredients or are named after ancient goddesses. Your products? Incarcerated prisoners package them – they’re not just a source of light, they light a way forward for others. That’s called having a niche, and to create one of your own, you need to research what your competitors are doing — and then do something no one else is.
Even then, amid our vast and variegated business landscape, you’re likely to find overlap with others in your sector. Consider the recent addition of Poppi and Olipop to the soda market. Both have set themselves apart from the mainstream by being prebiotic options that offer a far greater health bang for your buck, but they’ve both successfully set themselves apart from each other as well along such lines as scientific research, specific ingredients, visual strategies and target audience.
Say what you will about the post-2025 Super Bowl controversy, these two companies not only illustrate the power of niche branding (particularly on social media) but also how similar brands can still clearly differentiate themselves from one another within the same market.
Related: The End of the Unicorn Dream
Unicorn pillar #2: Be kind
This might seem like another overly simplistic concept, but kindness has too often been supplanted by the perpetual quest for increased profits and presence, making it all the more valuable today. Consumers have gotten quite savvy at sniffing out false sincerity, so when they come across the real thing, they’re much more prone to give you their business. Basically, when your client base believes you prioritize your vision, your team and creating an incredible product or service over financial gain, they want to work with you.
Chewy.com is a business known for being kind. When it learns of a customer’s pet passing, it sends a sympathy card and flowers. And it almost goes without saying that KIND Snacks didn’t just build its brand on the basis of products that are kind to the body; it’s far more widely known as an entity committed to international peace, cooperation and understanding.
Related: Unicorn Founders Have Three Simple Things in Common: Study
Unicorn pillar #3: Organizational efficiency
I call this outstanding quality “having your ducks in a row,” and when a business excels in this area, it will rise to the top of its trade. I’m talking about having an on-the-ball accounting team that pays your bills on time, a crack legal team that prepares fair and clear contracts, an accessible and attentive HR department and sound business practices and processes. It’s what goes on behind the scenes of your business that will determine what appears on the public side of your business, so you can’t go wrong adopting company-wide efficacy as your unicorn model. With it, you build a house of bricks, as opposed to a house of straw.
Think of the companies Americans trust to come through for them. When Amazon says your package will be on your doorstep by 5:00 pm tomorrow, it’s there, thanks to an amazingly well-oiled machine working nonstop to fulfill orders.
When PODS says it will deliver your belongings to your new driveway on Tuesday, it’ll go out of business if that container doesn’t arrive. And I’m not quite sure how Chick-fil-A manages to keep so many cars in so many take-out lines happy, but day in and day out, it does.
Being more efficient than any of your competitors may not be “sexy,” but it assures lasting success.
Unicorn pillar #4: Invest in your people
Building and maintaining a remarkable “company culture” can just be a buzzword to you, or you can bring it to life. I can’t think of any single factor that makes my company more valuable to my clients than the value I place on my people and the experience I endeavor to provide them by working for me. When my staff feels openly recognized, wholly supported and vitally important to achieving our shared outcomes, we’re truly unstoppable. So keep in mind that your unicorn focus can be internal, not necessarily client-facing.
How about you? Where do you want to shine? More to the point, where do you already shine? Sure, all of the above examples are nationally, if not internationally, known, with tremendous resources and budgets at their disposal, so you’re not expected to achieve outcomes of the same size and scale. But the good news here is that you are smaller and more self-contained, so you don’t have to appeal to as many people or make as big an impact. On the contrary, you can make a bigger splash in a smaller pool!
To ride heads and tails above the rest, then, pick one lane, steadfastly stick to that lane, travel it with as much drive and dedication as you can — and then watch as you pass all the others on the track, crossing the finish line in first place!
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