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Don't Worry about Your Competition
(Let Them Worry about You)
What, me worry?
—Alfred E. Neuman
Who are your closest competitors? How are you going to beat your competition? What makes you better than your competition? What are the differentiating factors between you and your competition?
You probably get asked these types of questions all the time from your prospects, your clients, and your internal staff. Should you have answers? Yes. But don't overdo it.
Over the years we have spoken with numerous clients about their strategies, and the conversation inevitably turns to the competition. We often find that the people who run services firms waste an inordinate amount of time and effort worrying about, and angling against, other firms that provide services to their target market. Often it's just not worth the intense time and focus that firms spend on it.
These mistakes are understandable, but they're still mistakes. Since time is something we all have precious little of, we list the most common mistakes here so that you can spend more time on the marketing issues that will make a bigger difference.
Mistake 1: Over-the-Top Competitive Research
Some service firm business and marketing plans list and describe page after page of information about their competition. This is from one plan we reviewed: “Over the past three months, we were able to successfully locate 37 negotiation consulting firms. Detailed descriptions follow, along with our unique positioning against each one....” ...
