Who determines your company’s place in the market: you, your competitors or your customers? Are you a top-ranked business because of your efforts or because of your competitors’ mistakes? Does this even matter if your market position is determined by your customers?

Remember the 1960s slogan for car rental company Avis: “We’re number 2. We try harder.”

That slogan, along with some clever ads, helped Avis gain marketshare but not at the expense of the market-leader, Hertz. Instead, Avis gained at the expense of its many other competitors whose marketing efforts were weak by comparison.

In a crowded market, consumers will think that being “number 2” isn’t that bad since it’s right next to the top company. Since consumers perceived Avis to be almost like Hertz, Avis got their business. The brand value of Hertz helped lift the brand of Avis and in doing so, helped distance Avis from its other competitors.

Avis didn’t compare itself to any of the other lesser car rental companies but only to the market-leader. In the end, Avis never became “number 1” but it did secure a bigger slice of the car rental business.

Lesson to be learned: compete with businesses which are where you want to be and not with those where you are, (within reason). Or, to use a sports analogy: punch above your weight.

This will force you to up your game, try harder and work smarter. Even if you fall short of your goals, you still end up ahead. (Of course, if this was easy, everyone would be doing it.)