"The dilemma is this. In the modern world knowledge has been growing so fast and so enormously, in almost every field, that the probabilities are immensely against anybody, no matter how innately clever, being able to make a contribution in any one field unless he devotes all his time to it for years. If he tries to be the Rounded Universal Man, like Leonardo da Vinci, or to take all knowledge for his province, like Francis Bacon, he is most likely to become a mere dilettante and dabbler. But if he becomes too specialized, he is apt to become narrow and lopsided, ignorant on every subject but his own, and perhaps dull and sterile even on that because he lacks perspective and vision and has missed the cross-fertilization of ideas that can come from knowing something of other subjects." ~ Henry Hazlitt

We come head-to-head with the issue of expertise quite a bit in our practice – both for our own brand as well as our clients. The discussion goes something like this, ‘If we focus too much on one specialty, we loose out on a segment of customers‘. And the other side of the debate says, ‘And if we generalize, our customers won't know us for anything‘. The dilemma of being a specialist vs a generalist.

Customers need to attach a specific value to a brand, but most organizations have a broad range of offerings to choose from. Discontinuing those offerings may impact a business negatively, but at the same time, being known for too many will also dilute a customer's understanding of that brand.

In the following graph we break out how an organization can move from a very broadly understood brand – a generalist – to a highly niche brand – a specialist:

• Specialist / Generalist: Focused on a very niche discipline, while offering that specialized service to a broader market.
• Generalist / Specialist: Focused on a broad offering of services to a very specific segment of the market.
• Specialist / Specialist: Focused on offering a very niche discipline to a very specific segment of the market.
• Generalist / Generalist: Focused on a broad offering of services to a broad market.

We would say that Matchstic is a Specialist / Generalist; we are focused on a very specialized discipline (Brand Identity) while offering that niche service to a wide range of industries (B2C, B2B, Non-profit, service-based, product-oriented, and on).

There are pros and cons to each, as well as a few trends that seemingly emerge:

• The Specialist / Generalist has the benefit of expertise as does the Generalist / Specialist.
• The Specialist / Specialist is hyper-focused, and while extremely niche oriented, may be so much so that they become stagnant.
• And the Generalist / Generalist may be the least desirable, with seemingly no expertise and little for customers to attach meaning to.

To conclude, it seems that balance and symmetry are key; too far in either direction and discipline or perspective are lost.

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