Dream Big and Win

8Competing

You may have the greatest product or service in the world, but without being able to sell it, you won't have a company for long. So in this chapter, we're going to talk about not only how the sausage is made but also how it is sold in a crowded marketplace.

Words of Wisdom

“The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort.”

—Colin Powell

How Do You Like Them Apples?

Our first concern with our nascent company was figuring out how we'd differentiate ourselves from the competition. To the uninitiated, translation services can seem like a commodity, especially given the overlap of translators working for more than one employer. If we'd adopted the attitude that we were all doing the same sort of work for the same client base—an apples‐to‐apples comparison—the natural inclination would be to sell on price.

That would have been a mistake.

The nature of business is that you will always have competition; it's inevitable. However, if you're somehow the only player in the game and you've cornered the market, my advice is don't get too comfortable because it won't last. If you're experiencing any sort of success, I guarantee another company is going to come along with a slightly different way of doing what you do. (Try not to look surprised when it happens.) New businesses are often less about inventing something so much as finding a differentiator in an established market.

Let's say you've created the world's most effective ...