Women's Business Blog

Entrepreneur's Tip of the Week: Don't Underestimate the Competition

Every entrepreneur I meet believes that their business is unique beyond belief. Somehow each assumes (s)he has found the "secret sauce" that sets the business ahead of any competitor and has a formula that can't be copied or bettered. The truth is it takes more than a "secret sauce" to keep the competition from wooing your customers away from you. Loyalty to one business is very rare in today's economy. Although you may have customers that have been with you since the beginning unless you are regularly proving to them that you and your company are staying on the cutting edge of your industry you are in jeopardy of losing them to the competition.

Entrepreneur story #1: Sue, President of XYZ Printers, has had a contract with ABC Bank, a Fortune 100 financial services company for the ten years she has been in business. As a WBE (women-business enterprise) she was able to contract with the bank's diversity procurement officer in 2000 for a yearly $1M printing contract. Over the past ten years the contract has remained the same and Sue counts the $1M as working capital in her budget each year. She attends the bank's yearly diversity procurement breakfast to make sure that she is visible to the procurement team and to others on the senior management team. However, she has never discussed how she and her business could provide the bank with better service or a better product even though the technology has changed. Her thoughts were, "don't try and fix what isn't broken and I don't want them to review the contract as it might give them the opportunity to cancel it." Unfortunately for Sue the competition was making a pitch every year for a larger printing contract.The competition was demonstrating that it could offer better quality and more value with its up-to-date technology. It didn't take long for the word to get around that Sue's company wasn't delivering the best for its $1M contract. Before the end of the year's contract, Sue got a letter from the bank informing her that they would not be contracting with her going forward. Sue realized that her silence as a vendor lost her the business. In this case, her "secret sauce" was the bank's meeting their minority purchasing requirements. In the end, it didn't matter because the competition was busy finding the vulnerability in the relationship and finally was able to win a chance to prove themselves.

The moral of the story is that every entrepreneur and every business must be active every day in proving themselves, not only to their current clients but to those they are pitching. Today's "secret sauce" for one business is tomorrow's "what can I do for you that your current vendor isn't doing?"

If you hear yourself talk about how unique your business is to the industry and for your customers, please catch yourself immediately and remind yourself that while you are sitting on your pedestal your competitor is learning how to win over your clients. Don't ever underestimate your competition!

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Women's Business Coach: TIP OF THE WEEK: Love the Competition

You are a small business owner -an entrepreneur -following your gut to build the business of your dreams. You believe you have developed the next greatest product or service that the world has never seen. You've put your life savings into your business and borrowed from family and friends for the startup costs to get the doors opened. You've had blinders on for the past three months while you were putting all the pieces in place to launch the business and just when you are ready to hold your opening you find out that you have a competitor you didn't know existed. You panic! How could someone else be doing exactly what you plan to do and attracting the same customers in the same geographic location? Is there enough business to go around? Is your dream of getting rich evaporating before you even get started?

The answer is if your idea is that good someone else was bound to think of it and get into business just like you. And, having competition is the best thing that can happen to any business. If you love the competition you can learn how to differentiate your business from hers and how to garner more attention for the concept of the business itself. For example, first having two new businesses doing the same thing in the same geographic location makes for an interesting story for blogs, social media sites, newspapers, radio and tv (cable). Get out in front of your competition and start talking about the industry. Get known as the expert in the industry and make sure to mention the competition as often as possible as another player in this growing arena. Competition in every industry allows customers to want what is being offered with more energy. An example is the more Starbucks focused on the coffee industry the more coffee there is being sold elsewhere. Would you have ever thought McDonald's would have taken such an interest in coffee sales? When an industry (product or service) gets hot competitors come out of the woodwork to compete for their piece of the pie and the more competitors the more customers are flooded with information about the product or service. Your job as a small business owner in this industry is to love your competition and find the holy grail that will make sure ever customer for this product or service stops in to check with you before deciding to buy. Competition is the best thing that can happen to any small business. Get to know your competitors well. Get to know how they do business well. Get to know what makes YOU different from the competition. If they do well so will you. But, only if you truly love the competition. Try it and see how well it works.

 

Competition: Just What Women in Business Need to Celebrate

Whether it is business or sport, having a good competitor is what makes the game worth playing. A good challenger forces you to perform at your best and keep up your guard at very turn. Just knowing that there is someone waiting for you to falter and take advantage of your weakness should energize you to stretch beyond what you believe is your best. There is no contest without a challenger, and that's what keeps you striving and perfecting your game plan. So the next time you hear yourself muttering about the competition, remember that she is the reason you keep getting better.