Get to the high ground. Go extreme and be sharp.

Being sharp means to be the best of something – to go extreme.

It’s to create that quantum leap of certain values that no other can match.

For most businesses (the mass), they find rest in the middle ground. They mass produce something good enough to make profits. Anything beyond is considered a cost. For businesses in pursuit of genuine value propositions (the outliers), however, they flee from the middle ground. They find their metastable state on the edge where they can stretch certain values to the extreme.

There they underpromise and overdeliver. They don’t just meet expectations; they exceed them. They don’t just read their customers in excel files; they see them.

From good to great, they find their missions – something beyond profit and bigger than themselves. They are destined to set a record for something remarkable.

After all, being sharp is not a gift – it’s a choice.

It’s just that some choose to become sharp and some opt not. Some choose to put their best foot forward to go all in, while others stop at half-measures.

Take toothpowder for instance. Many toothpowder brands use good-enough ingredients – just good enough to make them a safe enough choice. Akamai nonetheless takes a different approach. They use the best of the best ingredients. They don’t just use bentonite clay, they use therapeutic, filtered, unprocessed, non-irradiated, and GRAS-certified bentonite clay. They don’t just use essential oils, they use steam distilled, hexane-free, GFSI and cGMP certified, and organic essential oils. And they don’t come up with their formula casually. They went through years of research, trial and error, and consultation with industry experts to come up with this balanced formula.  

Take toothpaste for another instance. Toothpaste can be abrasive, sometimes very abrasive depending on what ingredients are used. Yet few brands talk about it. They don’t disclose their RAD data – the Relative Dentin Abrasivity data – to inform customers how abrasive their toothpaste is. That’s when Essential Oxygen steps in. They don’t just disclose their RDA data, they make it public that their BR Organic Toothpaste has the lowest abrasion rate in the market.

An RDA score below 70 is considered to have low abrasivity, between 70-150 to have medium to high abrasivity, and beyond 200 to have extreme abrasivity.  

And Essential Oxygen?

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Just as Chris Do succinctly puts it, whoever occupies the #1 spot commands 3 times more profit than #2, and #2 commands 3 times more profit than #3. As the ranking goes down, profits will get smaller and thinner.

A matter of fact is, people will remember #1, maybe #4, but not #10 unless they know #10 in person.

As many brands find their comfort zone in the middle ground, they may eventually realize that this is a risky spot to sink in.

Maybe it’s time to get to the high ground.

Go extreme and be sharp.