It doesn’t sound like much of a choice does it?

Should a company strive for depth and market segment dominance or spread their resources across multiple markets for the sake of customer diversity?  What makes you more valuable in the long run?

Of course the ideal is deep breadth but so many companies, especially in the mid market, get caught up in this race to diversify their customer base resulting in neither depth nor breadth but rather bad breadth.

Customer diversity can reduce the risk of market exposure, but as leaders pursue the next logical market, they must resist the lure of developing token presences in multiple markets.  Customer and market intimacy are difficult to develop when your presence in a market is paper thin.

Many of us took our queue from Jack Welch and strove to be number one or number two in our chosen markets.  Mid market leaders have to adjust this thought process considering the size of their companies, but the theory holds.  Be strong and deep in your chosen markets and move logically and purposefully to the next market.

Yogi Berra didn’t say it, but he could have … “deep depth is much better than bad breadth”.