Making Competitors Work For You.
Have you ever thought about what it would be like if there were no other businesses to compete with?
“Could you make a fortune?” This idea is familiar to many and is likely the favorite daydream of every businessperson.
However, this daydream should remain just that because without competition, there would be no challenges to improve products, services, and oneself.
A savvy businessperson understands that competitors act as catalysts and motivation, encouraging them to do better.
They have figured out how to benefit from their rivals. Here are some ways you can make competitors work in your favor:
1. Understand Your Market:
Delve into your product, service, and industry knowledge. Visit competitors’ businesses, participate in conferences, join business associations, and read professional journals, reports, and books.
Learning is a continuous activity. The more you know about your business, the more confident you will become.
2. Identify Competitors’ Weaknesses and Strengths:
Discover these by talking to their customers and employees, testing their products, and understanding what products and services they offer and at what prices.
3. Evaluate Your Strengths and Weaknesses:
Compare your services, pricing, and advantages, such as location, to those of your competitors.
4. Use Competitors to Your Advantage:
Understand who your competition is and how it operates. Anticipate customer needs based on what they have seen from competitors.
The fact that a customer knows about a competitor should be a buying signal for you. Use this wisely to secure orders.
5. Learn from Competitors’ Mistakes:
Keep your eyes and ears open to learn from their mistakes. Make a habit of asking yourself, “What lesson can I learn from their mistakes?“
6. Adopt Good Ideas:
Recognize patterns in your competitors’ strategies and don’t hesitate to adopt successful elements. You may be able to improve on them. Progress and profits come from doing better than anyone else.
7. Maintain Professionalism:
Avoid speaking negatively about competitors or their products. Acknowledge their existence and focus on showing customers the benefits of your products. Demonstrate how your service is far superior.
Your confidence and genuine enthusiasm will win customers over. Concentrate on how you can better help your customers.
Speaking poorly of competitors only diminishes your own credibility.
There are other ways you can use your competition to your advantage. The mentioned strategies aim to stimulate your thinking on how to benefit from what initially appears as disadvantages. A good motto to remember is “To do better what others do well.”
The typical businessperson often views competition as a threat to snatch away their customers.
However, a more beneficial approach is to consider how collectively they can contribute to the growth of the market.
When you take a few accounts from your competitors, they reciprocate by taking some from you.
This results in a mere exchange of accounts, leading to increased sales costs, heightened emotions, and decreased profits. It is illogical for small companies to engage in internal conflicts when they already face numerous challenges.
Small business operators often lack professionalism in this regard. They frequently harbor animosity toward their competitors and, in many cases, refuse to engage in dialogue.
This behavior is imprudent because emotions should never override sound judgment.
When an industry becomes engrossed in internal battles for customers and market share, it loses sight of the goal of industry growth.
Such growth is best achieved through customer-oriented rather than competition-oriented marketing.
In simpler terms, invest more time in understanding how to enhance customer service and broaden the range of potential customers who do not currently use your products and services.
Explore ways to expand the market instead of fretting over your competitors’ customers. Your focus should be on building a business, not tearing it down.
Taking a fresh perspective on your competitors, as outlined here, will demonstrate what successful businessmen have always known: competition, when properly managed, can work in your favor rather than against you.
Rather than seeing competition as a threat, consider it an opportunity for collective market growth. Engage positively with competitors to contribute to industry advancement.
In conclusion, a fresh perspective on competitors, as described here, shows what successful business people have always known: competition, when harnessed properly, can work for you, not against you.
