Knowing your competition can make a huge difference to your mindset.
Sun Tsu is widely regarded as one of the great writers on the topic of military strategy. The Art of War book has been adopted by many in business as a guiding mantra for how they think about how they compete.
One of the many phrases that Sun Tsu said, which resonates with business owners is:
“for those that know their enemy and know themselves, they should never fear the outcome of the hundred battles.”
So it is an interesting analogy for business. If we understand our competitors, their strengths, their weaknesses, how their product compares to ours, how their offering compares to ours, we often find that we fear them less.
And we also know that our position is potentially stronger. Simply knowing how we compete provides us with the opportunity to think about where we can make changes to our product or service that improves our competitive position.
However, if you don’t know your competitive position, you’ve got no means of knowing if your change will make any difference.
One of my clients recently undertook a competitive analysis exercise. It didn’t cost a lot of money, but revealed a $60,000 per annum profit opportunity that was easily realised, by a simple pricing change. Put simply, he’d been charging way under the market. The payoff for making that small investment in that competitive analysis has been 30 fold in just 12 months.
Taking the time to really understand your competitors can pay huge dividends for the way that you can compete. I highly recommend you take the time to do it.
If you would like assistance in improving your competitive position in the marketplace, please Contact Us.
