Don’t think you have competition? You’re about to be dinner.
Competition is one of our basic survival instincts, and while we may no longer be running from sabre-toothed tigers or fighting off marauding rival tribes, this instinct has stuck with us as we’ve evolved from hunters and gatherers to boardroom CEOs.
We often try to minimize competition within society because the level of competitive instinct that once drove our ancestors to bring down wooly mammoths can get in the way of the cooperative spirit necessary to create a civilized society.
But competition is not a bad thing. It’s what drives us to innovate, to do better, to go faster, to develop a product or service that provides real world value. Without the threat of someone trying to take your means of survival (i.e. your income) you can lose motivation to learn, to work harder, and to grow.
In the business world, though, it’s a lot harder to know who or what your competition is. Time after time I’ve heard business owners say, “No one does what we do,” or “We don’t have competition.” If you’re someone who says this, you should take a quick look over your shoulder because you’re about to become dinner to an astute, nimble, and creative business leader looking for new opportunities. Call them a modern-day sabre-toothed tiger.
Why it’s difficult to identify your competition
After helping many business owners and leaders who’ve said this to me figure out who their real competition is, and how to stand out to prospective customers, I’ve got some insight here.
You might believe you don’t have competition for two reasons:
- If you invest a tremendous amount of yourself into your organization that goes beyond just punching a clock, your attachment to this organization is often emotional as well as economical. When you invest on an emotional level it is difficult to imagine that anyone has quite what you have or can do quite what you do.
- If you have made some good strategic decisions with your organization and, because of that, you actually do hold a unique position in the market that no one else has been able to tap into yet, you may begin to feel a false sense of security that no other organization has the capabilities to offer or develop a competing product or service.
Don’t let this fool you into thinking you don’t have any competition.
Advice for the emotionally attached
If you fall into the first category, you will probably struggle to identify your competition even after you’ve accepted that your competition does, in fact, exist. If this is the case, the best thing you can do is work with an outside agency — or a trusted but emotionally unattached employee — with the ability to conduct an objective competitive analysis for your organization.
After all, your competition doesn’t care how much you love your business. They just want a piece of it.
Own your chunk of the market? Watch out
Business owners or leaders in the second category should be on the highest alert of all. Unlike in the natural world where the big, bad sabre-toothed tiger generally wins, the business world favors the nimble little guy when it comes to disruptive innovations (think “the discovery of fire”). If you’ve actually carved out this kind of unique market for your organization, you can be sure that someone is trying to figure out how to get a piece of it for themselves.
When you’ve established this kind of unique positioning, it’s easy to focus on what you’re doing and forget about what’s going on outside because very little threatens your success.
But a perceived lack of competition can also lead to a loss of motivation to continually learn and innovate. And while you cruise along without a care in the world, those little kittens that were running and playing all around you are growing up to be killer cats.
What knowing your competition can do for you
Knowing your competition and understanding how they operate can give you key insights that will help you maintain your market position as well as find new areas for growth. These insights include, but are not limited to:
- Understanding why people buy from you
- Understanding why people buy from your competition
- Identifying areas in your market position where you are vulnerable to competitive creep
- Identifying gaps in the market where you can grow or improve
- Developing strategies to protect your unique position
If reading this has made you realize that you’ve gotten fat and lazy gorging on your uncontested piece of the market, start running NOW and assess your competitive position. Whether you realize it or not, there’s a very big cat stalking you who is about ready to pounce.
This article was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse.
