Featured in Northampton Living: What Happens When Your Brand Is Too Close to a Competitor?

In July 2023, I was featured in Northampton Living Magazine discussing a problem that had landed on one of my clients’ desks: another business in the same industry was using the same name and threatening legal action.

At the time, much of my work focused on business and personal branding. The article encouraged business owners to investigate the public landscape around their business before investing heavily in an identity—looking at who else is operating in the space, how they present themselves and where potential confusion could arise.

There is a larger principle from that work that I still believe matters: you need to know what already exists outside your own perspective.

What Can Someone Else See That You Can’t?

When you spend every day inside a business, it is remarkably easy to assume that the distinctions you see are equally obvious to everyone else.

They may not be.

Customers, competitors and other outside observers encounter your business without all the context you possess. Similar names, language, positioning or presentation can create associations and confusion you never intended.

That outside perspective was important to my work then, and it remains central to my work today—even though Boss Diplomat has evolved considerably since this article was published.

My focus today extends beyond business brands into people: what we communicate, what others notice and what can become difficult to see when we are standing too close to ourselves or a situation.

This article captures an earlier application of that same instinct: look beyond what you intended and examine what is actually visible from the outside.