How to be effective against competition in both our business and personal lives? Competition is the biggest worry for so many. Businesses are always worried about the competition and how to beat them. Individuals are subject to competition every time they go for a job interview or try to buy a house or worst of all try to “keep up with the Joneses.” The last one leads us to, in the words of Dave Ramsey “we buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.” Businesses are similar, they spend money they often don’t have on things their customers don’t care about to keep up, with their “competitors.” If we could solve this sort of competition then we could go a long way to solving the climate crisis but that’s another blog.
The problem is that in this modern world none of us really know who are competition will be or where they will be. The days of at least knowing who you are competing against are gone. There is the old and easy example that the record companies were too busy competing with each other to notice that their real competition, which was to almost completely wipe then out within two years, was a computer company. The problem is that it’s getting worse. The biggest competitor for someone who make ovens is not other oven manufacturers or even the microwave but the air fryer which has come from nowhere and stands to dominate the cooking market very quickly. Likewise, I wonder how many camera companies predicted that their major competitor would be a telephone company?
The problem is that consumers now realise that they don’t want a better cooker, they want a better way to cook. They don’t want a better camera, they want a better way to take pictures. In my business, they don’t want a consultant, they want a better way to run their business. Here’s one for free for the car companies. We don’t want a better car, we want a better way of getting from A to B – same for the airlines and train companies. Here’s another one. Businesses don’t want bookkeepers and accountants. They want a better way of complying with the law and getting information which helps them to run a better business. Oh, and just one more. They don’t want schools and universities. They either want a better way of getting the qualification they need for that job they want or a better way of getting the knowledge they require. Three to five years of debt accumulation is looking increasingly unattractive as better alternatives present themselves.
If we can’t see the competition coming then surely we are doomed I hear you cry. But no.
Just think how much easier life would be and how much simpler business would be if we only had one competitor. Wouldn’t life be simple? Well the good news is, it is.
To find this competitor you only need two things. An understanding of what your customer really wants and a mirror.
Once you understand what it is that your customer really wants then all you need do is compete with yourself to produce it and produce it better and then better again and then better again. Don’t ignore people in the same space as you but don’t compete with them. Compete with yourself and satisfy the real market demand, not the perceived one. It’s not easy but all the evidence is that it works.
On a personal basis you can also stop spending money on things you don’t want just to compete with people you don’t like!!!!
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