Who Is Your Competition?

Who is your competition? It’s not who you think!

You may assume that it is the other companies in your niche, but it goes further than that. Your true competition is more the status quo and often not other businesses who do the same services you provide. Your competition is usually people who think they can do the service you provide, which in my business, is often the receptionists, wives, or teenage nieces and nephews. When I go in to pitch for a sale, I can tell how I need to position myself based on who the person is currently using. 

This can be seen across all industries. Let’s look at a professional painter to start. A painters competition isn’t so much the painting company across the street, but the husbands or wives who think they can paint their own house. It won’t be as professionally completed as if an actual painter did it, but if the family is hoping to save money, it is acceptable enough for them. So when the painter sits across from a family, he doesn’t need to spend as much time talking about his traditional competition, ie, the company across the street, but why he is a better choice than the homeowners. He can talk about why you want it done in two days, I mean, who wants to live in a construction zone, right? He can pitch himself against the homeowner doing it themselves. This will make him more effective in sales.

When meeting up with a potential client to make your sales pitch, it is important to know your positioning and who your competition truly is. You want to feel assured when walking into a meeting, that you are the expert in your field and can offer your product or service better than not only your traditional competition, but also your true competition. You want to market your company so you will attract your defined audience and the clients that approach you truly care about the product or service you offer.

If you want to learn more about this, watch our Whiteboard Wednesday video. Throughout this video, we detail what the true competition is of different companies. We speak about flooring companies, and Starbucks, among others. 

If you are conflicted on how to market your company and make it beneficial to finding your ideal customers, don’t hesitate to contact either of us and we will help you in any way we can.