The Problem With Being “Better”

Most B2B marketing is built around a simple premise: our product is better than the competition. Better features. Better price. Better service. Better support. We are better at the thing everyone is already doing.

Here is the problem with that premise: buyers do not evaluate vendors in a vacuum. They evaluate them within a mental category. When a buyer is looking for a CRM, they already have a model of what CRM means, what it costs, what it does, and who the credible players are. To compete in that buyer’s mind, you have to win a comparison game where the rules were written by whoever defined the category first.

If you are competing in someone else’s category, the best you can be is the second-best version of something they already defined. That is a race to the bottom.

Category design is the alternative. Instead of competing to be the best in an existing category, you define a new category where you are the only logical choice — because you invented it.

Christopher Lochhead’s Framework, Applied

Christopher Lochhead, co-author of Play Bigger and the originator of category design theory, makes the argument that approximately 76% of value in any market accrues to the company that defines the category. Not the best product. Not the lowest price. The company that creates the frame through which buyers understand the problem.

Category design has three interlocking components: Problem Design, Category Design, and Company Design. All three must be true simultaneously for category design to work.

Problem Design: Reframe What the Buyer Is Trying to Solve

Category design starts with the problem — not the solution. Most B2B companies describe the problem they solve in exactly the same language their competitors use. “We help you manage your marketing better.” “We give you visibility into your supply chain.” “We streamline your HR processes.”

None of those problem statements create category ownership. They participate in an already-existing problem definition that your competitors also own.

Problem design asks: what is the real problem, and how do we describe it in a way that makes our solution the only logical answer? The Second Click, for example, does not compete in the “marketing agency” category. We have defined a different problem: B2B companies between $10M and $75M are trapped paying for marketing activity while their pipeline remains unpredictable — because no one has ever built them a revenue operations system that connects marketing spend to closed deals. That problem framing makes “a better marketing agency” an irrelevant comparison.

Category Design: Name, Frame, and Own

Once you have defined the problem in a new way, you need to name the category that solves it. Naming matters because it gives buyers a mental bucket for what you do that is distinctly yours.

The category name should describe the outcome or the new paradigm — not the mechanism. “Revenue Operations Partner” describes an outcome. “AI Marketing Agency” describes a mechanism. The former is harder to commoditize because it is defined by what it produces, not how it works.

The category also needs to be defensible. You need to be able to credibly claim to have invented it, to be the definitive leader in it, and to have the content, proof, and customer base to back that claim up. A category you cannot own is not a category — it is a positioning statement.

Company Design: Align Everything to the Category

This is where most companies who attempt category design fail. They define a new category in their positioning but continue to operate, price, sell, and structure their business like everyone else in the old category. Category design is not a marketing exercise. It is a business model decision.

If you are an AI Marketing Operations Partner, you do not charge for hours. You charge for outcomes. You do not deliver reports — you deliver systems. Your success metrics are pipeline and revenue, not impressions and followers. Every touchpoint in your customer experience should reinforce the category you are defining.

How to Apply This to Your Business

Category design is not exclusively for venture-backed software companies. We have seen it applied successfully by professional services firms, manufacturing companies, healthcare services organizations, and B2B technology companies of all sizes. The principles are universal. The application is specific to your market.

Here is a simplified starting framework:

1. Identify the existing category you are in. Write down how your buyers currently describe the problem you solve. That is the category you need to escape.
2. Find the misery. What frustration, failure, or outcome gap are your best customers experiencing before they find you? That misery is the fuel for your new problem definition.
3. Define the new problem. Describe the real root cause of that misery in a way that is true, resonant for your buyer, and points to your solution as the natural answer.
4. Name the new category. What do you call the approach that solves this newly defined problem? Make sure you can own it, prove it, and build a content strategy around it.
5. Align your GTM. Pricing model, sales process, onboarding, case studies, and measurement framework — all of it should reinforce the category narrative.

“The companies that win are the ones that make the competition irrelevant — not by building a better mousetrap, but by convincing the world that mice are the wrong problem.” — Christopher Lochhead, Play Bigger

The Content Strategy That Makes the Category Real

A category you have defined but not evangelized is just a positioning statement. Category design requires a content strategy specifically designed to make the new category real in your market — to give it language, evidence, advocates, and momentum.

The content strategy for a category-creating company looks different from traditional content marketing. It is not keyword-chasing — it is thought leadership that defines the conversation. It creates the vocabulary your buyers start using to describe their own problems. It generates the evidence base that makes your category narrative credible. And it builds the community of people who are invested in the category succeeding.

This is why content and category design are inseparable at The Second Click. The content is not just for SEO. It is the primary medium through which the category is created and the customer is taught to see the world differently.