Have You Thanked Your Competitors Lately?
Competition in the business world is often viewed as a negative
thing, but it doesn't have to be. Competition can benefit you,
your competitor, and especially your customer!
Let's look at some of the ways in which competitors can help you:
They prevent you from becoming lazy and overly comfortable in
your business practices. It's easy to feel confident and relaxed
in your business if you have a unique product that everyone
wants. You don't feel any pressure to better yourself or your
product. Everyone wants it, so it must be good as it is, right?
Then one day another company comes along that begins offering
similar products that are just a little bit better than yours.
Uh-oh! Now you feel the pressure to perform. You don't want to
lose your customers, so you need to continuously improve your
product and your level of customer service. You now need to give
your customers a stronger reason to keep coming back to you.
They encourage you to be more creative. So, now you're not the
only one selling purple-polka-dotted purses anymore. What can
you do? Develop more products! Stretch your imagination. Come up
with some unique ideas that will either improve upon your
existing products or design new ones. Come up with a line of new
accessories, new color schemes, new sizes and styles. Don't try
to copy what your competitors are doing, do something different
and unique. Express your own creativity.
They help you to stretch out of your comfort zones. Perhaps you
have a solid customer base and haven't had to invest much in
promoting your company until now. But the attention is slowly
beginning to drift away from you. Now you need to work a little
harder at your level of visibility. You can advertise some sales
or special promotions, get more involved with your local
community, or donate a portion of sales to a worthy cause.
Become as visible as you can in your community. Whether you have
an online business or a brick and mortar one, you need to remain
in your customers' minds. Put yourself and your company out
there whenever you can. Be noticeable, be memorable.
They force you to charge reasonable prices. This sounds like a
bad thing, but really it's not. Think of yourself as a consumer.
Aren't you always looking for good value for your money? Of
course you are. And so are your customers! While it's great to
be earning a lot of money for your products, you also want to be
fair to your customers if you want them to come back again. No
one likes to feel like they're being over-charged or ripped off.
You may need to explore different suppliers and materials in
order to keep your prices in line, but your customers will thank
you for it by returning again and again.
Joint ventures. These can be extremely profitable for both
parties, if they're done right. Perhaps you and your competitor
can offer discounts to the other's customers and do some
cross-promotion for each other. Promote your competitor's purses
and she will promote your scarves and shoes. Swap ads in each
other's newsletters. Think of some ways in which both of you
could work together to benefit yourselves, as well as your
customers. Build each other up, rather than trying to tear each
other down.
These concepts become a little more challenging when applied to
distributors who work for the same company, but it's still
possible to find ways to work together in growing your
businesses. Perhaps you can co-host a home-business seminar and
share in the product sales and recruits. Share the costs of
advertising in a prominent publication and split the responses.
Or each of you can target different markets and give referrals
to each other. Working together will ultimately result in more
sales for your company, which will benefit both of you also!
Competition can seem threatening at times, but the truth is,
there is room for all of us! Just think about the popular burger
places in the world today. I can think of at least 4 or 5
well-known ones, including the two most popular that are usually
found within blocks of each other in any city -- or sometimes
right next door to each other! These companies earn billions of
dollars a year. Look at how these companies keep encouraging
each other to do better. In their competition, they are creating
menus that have items for only $1, new value meal combinations,
new sandwiches and salads, later hours and more. It's
benefitting the consumer by giving them more choices and better
value for their money, and it's benefitting the burger places by
earning them more money. It's a win-win situation all around.
So the next time you see one of your competitors, smile, wave
and say, "THANKS!"