How to Deal With Competition

How you doin? It’s Q & A Tuesday, that’s right

Today for Q & A Tuesday, Sarah from O-My-Raw writes: Q: “I’m launching a new raw-foods business and I only have one main competitor. I can’t seem to get her out of my mind.” Will she think I’m a fraud? Will she hate me? “I know that competition is good for business but how far do I take it? Do I introduce myself? Do I attend the raw potlucks that she hosts in town or do I keep to myself and stay focused on my own client-based?”

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A: First of all girl, we have all been there. We’ve all started something new and then seen someone further ahead than us which all results in what is known as the dreaded “Comparison Hangover”. The Comparison Hangover is what you get when you go on a bender. You spend way too much time thinking about, obsessing about, and googling your competition and then you wind up feeling like ass.

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So your first assignment is to spend the majority of your time working on your own business so you can make it as amazing as it can be. If you really want to kick some major butt, you want to stop thinking small. Don’t look at just one competitor, you want to look at what’s happening in your entire industry because the truth is, there are tens of thousands of raw-food coaches out in the world and they are all peddling on the same shiznit. Ask yourself, what objections or frustrations are customers having with hiring raw-food coaches and how can you look outside or if there is something outside of the box to innovate your industry? 

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For example, when I first started out, there were a couple of key competitors that I too obsessed about, but then I got smart and stopped looking at just competitors and started looking at the whole industry and asked myself how could I do things differently? So when I first got started most people in personal development or in business advice everything was touchy-feely, it was very conservative, no one was doing what I like to call in Jersey “Real Tawk” and no one was keeping it fun and light-hearted and doing things that were edgy so of course, I came along and changed that. 

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Another example is many of the conferences that I would go to in either personal development or business conferences were known as “pitch fests” meaning that you get there and all it was one pitch after the other to sell you these really expensive programs or just everybody on stage was just a dog and pony show so that really didn’t feel so good to me so I created a conference called Rich Happy and Hot Live which is a pitch-free conference and it’s been selling out year after year. 

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One of the reasons is because it’s very different than in anything else in the market. You can and should do this too. Make a list of everything that happens in your industry that you think should change and go then ahead and change it. You want to make your business different, a full expression of you. Once you make that the foundation of how you are spending your time, it’s going to be a lot easier to get to know that “big” competitor, and in all honesty, she’s not really a competitor she’s a colleague of yours and it’ll be great for you to get to know her. 

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And since there are plenty of clients to go around, wouldn’t it be awesome if you guys can send the overflow to each other. So for example you might come across a client that is not really perfect fit for you, maybe you can filter that client off to your colleague and on the flip side, it’s likely that if you start sending her business with someone is not a good fit for her, she’s likely going to send them to you. 

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Bottom line is competitors need not to hate each other. She does not have to be your evil arch-nemesis. So let’s land this plane, here’s what I want you to do Sarah: put all of your energy and attention into making your business as great as it can be it means you’re going to look at the whole industry and seeing how you can make your business different and better.

And of course get to know that fine young lady, she’s not a just competitor, she’s a colleague.

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That’s my A to your Q Sarah, thank you so much for asking it. Now here’s what I want to know from you. How do you deal with competition in your industry? Do you have tips, or stories, or strategies to share? I would love to hear them. Leave a comment below or even better yet, leave me a video response. If you don’t want to know how to leave a video response, it’s right here. And of course if you are watching this video on your mobile phone or your iPad and you can’t see nothing right here but you can see a how-to on the link below in the description and just make sure you title your video response “How To Deal With Competition”. 

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