Curly: You know what the secret of life is?Mitch: No, what?Curly: This.Mitch: Your finger?Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean shit.Mitch: That’s great, but what’s the one thing?Curly: That’s what you’ve got to figure out. My business partner has an amazing philosophy: the essence of focus is sacrifice. I think this philosophy is particularly relevant in marketing businesses.Think social life for a second. When you’re describing a girl at a party to a friend: “She’s the girl with the obnoxious laugh,” or “He’s the guy that works for Microsoft.” Seldom do we provide an in-depth list of the features that the define people we meet. Unless there is no one characteristic that emerges as memorable. Those descriptions sound something like, “Don’t you remember, she’s the girl who went to school with Scott, she was wearing a blue dress, and she spilled that drink…” “Oh, now I remember, the girl who spilled the drink.”When a business stands for one thing that is clear and differentiated it helps consumers not only remember the business, but also to evoke associations. If we were marketing a flower shop whose big ideal was cheering up office workers with flowers. Cheer up could become the one thing…and in conversation….Zach’s flowers…the cheer up people…What’s your one thing? Right now mine is sleep.