In the 145 year history of Major League Baseball, there have been over 200,000 baseball games played, but only 23 of those games that were considered perfect games. What is a perfect game? This is when a pitcher does not allow any base runners throughout a nine-inning game. There can be no hits, no walks allowed, no batters hit by the pitch, no dropped called third strikes (in which a batter could "steal” first base), and no errors by any of the fielders that would allow a base runner. There are only 23 pitchers who have accomplished a perfect game and no one has done it twice. It is one of the hardest feats in all of sports to achieve. However, four years after the National League was formed, it looked like it would be a relatively routine event.

On June 17, 1880, John "Monte” Ward pitched the second perfect game in the short history of the Major Leagues. He pitched the Providence Grays to a 5-0 win over the Buffalo Bisons. Just five days earlier, Lee Richmond had pitched the Worcester Worcesters to a perfect game, defeating the Cleveland Blues 1-0. It seemed that perfect games would become a common thing as baseball pitchers began to experiment with more ways to make a baseball move as it was pitched and batters had yet to figure out how to hit a moving target. However, the next time two perfect games were pitched in the same season was 130 years (2010) after Richmond and Ward pitched the first two of them.

Is your brand rather common or is it unique? The rarer an item is, the easier it is to convince someone of its high value. If I could convince a true baseball fan that they would see something as unique as a perfect game, I could triple the price of tickets and sell out a stadium. Can you do that with your brand? There are ways to use your marketing to enhance the value of what you are selling. To make that happen, there are three areas which will need your marketing attention.

FABs

First, you have to know the FABs of your brand. FAB is an acronym for Features, Advantages and Benefits. In other words, what is it you do best? Now match your FABs with your customers’ needs. Why are people buying your products and services? What problems do you solve for them?

USP

Now compare what you do for the customer with your competition. What do you do that they don’t do to solve your customers’ problems? What is unique about your brand? We like to come up with a USP – or Unique Selling Proposition – that matches not only our FABs with customers’ needs, but also the unique way you go about this that makes you different than the rest of your competition. Use that uniqueness to make your brand stand out from the rest of the pack.

Say it, show it, back it up!

Name what you are doing. Give it a memorable catch phrase, tagline or campaign slogan that emphasizes your uniqueness and is easy to remember. Tell people your brand is valuable. Sell its distinctiveness. Most people will believe the marketing they hear – so say it! Get the word out, but don’t just stop there. Show people how your brand stands above the others. Compare your exceptional qualities against the competition’s commonness. On top of that, back up what you are saying. Guarantee the results you are marketing. Make the promise of quality a big part of your marketing message. In the end, you will have a brand that has great value – maybe even achieving rare status.

People will pay attention to a rare occurrence, like a perfect baseball game. They will also pay attention to a rare brand that proves its value. Market to perfection.