How much time do you spend worrying about your competition? Are you always looking over your shoulder or checking out what they are doing? Part of this answer depends on how mature your business is and part of it depends on you.
Competition validates a market. It’s good to know that you’re not the only one thinking that this particular market has a need that isn’t solved. And in order to compete today, you most likely have to think globally, be nimble, attract and retain great talent and deliver quality.
Assuming you’ve got healthy market dynamics, how much influence do you allow your competitors to have? How much smarter do you think they are? Do you believe they’ve figured it out?
Paranoia can be a good trait in business to help keep you on your toes, but keep it in context.
Build on your strengths, opportunities
Playing to your strength and tying your passion with market opportunities should drive your playbook.
I’m a big fan of the S and O quadrants from the ole’ SWOT analysis and firmly believe you should pay more attention to building on your strengths and matching those with opportunities. Being mindful of your weaknesses is important, but if you spend time trying to upgrade that quadrant, it will most likely only ever be mediocre at best.
Keep in mind that all businesses have strategies, budgets, resources and competitors — why are some delivering more value than others? It’s execution. It’s not magic, but magical when it happens.
Think your way through the playbook
Early stage companies need to be able to define their market niche and iterate, iterate, iterate until they’ve found a solution that delights their customer and can scale. Ultimately, their playbook is defined by their own abilities and read of the opportunity in front of them.
Competition plays a role, but the new company has an opportunity to do something different than what’s already out there — so thinking differently is a must.
Late stage companies are in operating mode. They’ve most likely isolated their big disruptive innovations to certain parts of the company, while the balance of the organization is innovating in increments and running the core business.
The core business has competitors and needs to understand where those players are headed and how to continue to position the company to create maximum value. It’s the larger more mature companies that many times have robust teams gathering information on their competitors. This information is critical, but potentially can fence in and reinforce “group think” vs. disruptive thinking.
Having your company come at the market, leaning forward on its toes, with its eyes wide open, increases your ability to attract the right talent. This talent can proactively build out the right products, using a strategy that takes advantage of your core strengths to deliver sustainable value.
Your competitors are out there — the good news is that they have nothing to do with your passion, strengths and unique and intentional approach toward winning.
Pamela Springer is the founding partner of SpringerNav LLC. She’s a 20-year entrepreneurial executive focused on developing profitable strategies that scale, drive revenue and build cohesive teams.
