What does best mean to you? In your industry, do you compare your idea of best regionally, nationally, or globally? Do you compare product to other industries? What I'm driving at is that you can't say you're the best without some kind of measure that others recognize as true.  Buyers in any industry have a good feeling for best and what they can afford and they hate baloney. So if you're going to claim you're the best you need the "show me the money" details to support the claim.  If I ask perspective clients to tell me how they are the best ( and I think after this many years in business I have a fairly good idea) and they say, "Well we want to be seen as the best;" well then that doesn't cut it. The word best alone means nothing. Why? Because by quantifying YOUR idea of best against others you can begin to sell your projects with greater confidence and clarity.

For example, I walk into a shoe store and ask the saleslady for a pair of shoes. "Right," she replies, "and could you be a tad more specific?" Sure. I'd like good shoes. "They're all good or we wouldn't be selling them." Let me ask it a different way, she smiles. "Would you like sneakers, boots, or wing tips?" "Do you have a price range? Color? Make? Material preference? Size?" Sound familiar? Clients almost always say they do great work or they design collaborative spaces-oh, that are green.  Or they say we want to be seen as they best. I say, "Tell me how you are better than anyone else. Specifically."

Does the concept of best have universal qualities?

We all have a vision in our minds of what quantifies best - really. When I had the catering business I knew that best for me meant never compromising on using only real ingredients like butter, sugar, eggs from free range chickens raised locally. Everything. Every roll, cake, and morsel eaten by my clients was made from scratch inside of my kitchen. I hired super smart good looking young people who went to world class universities, who exuded freshness and who usually came from the same socio-economic backgrounds as my clients. These articulate waiters (who could also be fabulous artists or film makers) knew how to set a table, blow out a candle and not get a drop of wax on the table, react well in an emergency, and performed with the same work ethic as the pilgrims. My team showed up at events on time, provided more than requested, and left venues cleaner than we found them. We never compromised and wouldn't accept jobs which required our food to have equal billing alongside a client's neighbor's cream cheese spread. Uniforms were spotless and made to look like the finest restaurants in France. The health department loved visiting our squeaky clean facility. And everyone loved working there because the team lived and breathed our elite status. There was a total look including the corporate branding that included the family crest on egg shell linen paper. When a client ate a killer brownie there was never an after taste of artificial vanilla. No one who worked for me would've said, "Are you done working on that?" The carriage trade could count on the same darn product and conduct every time they worked with my team. Excellence. Beauty. Lushness. Etiquette. Innovation. All aspects resembling my client's life-styles and their perceptions of what best meant to them. I catered to their wants and desires by making sure my company perfected that illusion and dream. I had a leg up against my competitors. I knew my way around fine art and antiques, I could grasp the nuances of a client's request, and could build the reality, because I knew emphatically what best in my business meant-universally.

And the point is: there may be thousands of architects and designers who can and do produce the best. I would postulate that most of us know what best means in any arena as well. For every category a set of universals exist that qualify as best. The March issue of Metropolis article Well Oiled Machine a boat load of examples of best. Great principals know who designed the best buildings in their home towns and around the world-before they get emails from their interns.

Start with a specific like model building.  Who makes the best? Check out this article in the NY Times: master model builder.  If that option is out of your budget, then hire great in-house designers from RISD or Pratt and set standards for your best like we'll use the finest woods available.  Perhaps your teams  need a boost of the best talent, try hiring from   Stanford's dschool, the FIT, or UB. How an office looks can help a discerning eye judge best too. Sunlight? Mess, yes, but cool mess. Note the things on an employee's desk-what do they look at? How do they see their world? Coffee cups from the last week piling up-could be ok-show high work load especially if there are stray Ipads, incredible models half under construction, pinned up images of famous buildings or hot designs in cars, post cards from around the world, stacks of various magazines, or even books. I can remember going to  CannonDesign's Chicago Office and seeing stacks of books everywhere. It really made an impression. Of course the office was drop dead gorgeous as well. The best all read-a lot - and beyond peer magazines. They're usually well traveled and spend more time roaming the exotic streets instead of playing golf while away.  

The best get published over and over -for a myriad of reasons-in the best places. They win the top awards and generally they win the best work. The best have hoards of young and old people from crazy disciplines that are siphoned from all over the world. The best have purpose and they want to create a better world-not make a little money. Their vision and direction is clear to all. They know what they want for work-specifically and they don't settle-even in a major recession. The best will take large and small jobs-that's not it-they just do everything perfectly. To them the word small gets replaced with the word jewel.

The best constantly experiment with and implement new technology-and they train everyone to be sure the whole team is brilliantly up to speed. They stay lean on fluff and remain agile.

They also have a signature style or identifying mark-precision in something. Most of the time when you walk into a building done by the best, joints all fit together perfectly or match, contractors haven't walked around with muddy feet all over brand new rugs, because they have the same ideals as the architects. Coincidentally, most of the teams have worked together honing expertise and excellence of service further adding to the successful outcomes with fewer change orders or problems.

The best generally have leaders with a creative eye for design and business acumen. Most appreciate the skill of the hand as a marvelous addition to technology. They understand that the finer things in life still come from human beings with abundant amounts of real talent and brains.

To become the best, a company must define what best means to them - in detail. And then they have to actually match that goal. Simple.