In its purest form, driving your competition crazy means disrupting the market to create new advantages for yourself while diminishing competitors' existing advantages. By using intelligence, bold moves and hard work, you can delight customers, increase sales and frustrate competitors wishing you would fail. It combines "It's not how you play but whether you win or lose" and "The best defense is a good offense". You know you're at peak efficiency when you play intensely as if everything depends on the outcome yet can walk away acting as if nothing depends on the results.
To start towards being able to drive your competitors crazy, you must first have a clear and accurate understanding of your company, your product and the competitive landscape in which you operate. Secondly, you need to understand your customers and their needs intimately. Finally, you must make an effort to understand your competitors and what motivates them. Before taking on the competition, it’s vital to first examine your own business and offerings. You’re ready to vigorously compete when you know the answers to questions like: What is the core business of your company, beyond just the products or services you provide? Where will your company realistically be in 5, 10 or even 20 years time? If a prospective customer doesn’t buy from you, what and where are they buying instead? What benefits does your product or service offer from the customer’s perspective? Why do your best customers choose you over other options? Are you positioned as high-end, low-cost, or a price leader? Are customers finding unexpected uses for your products? What is your personal management style - contented, market leader, upstart, or guerilla fighter? Have you ever asked your 10 best customers directly why they buy from you? Likewise, have you asked prospective customers who chose not to buy from you why they went elsewhere? Once you thoroughly examine your own business, you next need to understand your customers just as deeply. You can feel confident you know your customers when you can answer questions like: Exactly who is using your products or services? For any business clients you have, who within those companies makes the purchasing decisions? How are your competitors' similar offerings being used? What external factors like regulations or societal changes are influencing the market? What structures do you have in place for ongoing customer feedback? You can tell when you really know your customers when you start reliably developing products addressing needs they haven’t even voiced yet. When you can do that regularly in addition to providing upgrades and enhancements to existing offerings, you’ve demonstrated a thorough understanding of your customers. The final piece is understanding your competition. Keep in mind that the most effective competitive research comes from the top - CEOs who take the time to study the competition themselves often spot subtleties others would miss. Never be afraid to adapt or even outright copy a competitor’s good ideas. To study the competition, start from the big picture and sharpen your focus over time. You understand the competitive landscape when you know answers to questions like: Who specifically are the companies you compete with? What are their business goals and objectives? Are competitors focused on market share, specific products or services, or something else? Do they even consider your company as a competitor? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each? What is their general strategic style - contented incumbent, aggressive market leader, feisty upstart, guerilla warfare fighter? What sales channels do they utilize? How do they position their offerings compared to yours? How do they develop new products and services? Where is their manufacturing done? What are their pricing strategies, discount programs, payment terms, and rebate policies? How do they handle customer service and complaints? How do they solicit customer feedback? When was the last time you personally bought something from a key competitor to evaluate their performance firsthand? Who are the key executives at your rival firms and what are their backgrounds? What tends to motivate these individuals? How rapidly do competitors generally react to changes in the industry? Do they have hierarchical management structures or flatter organizations? How is information distributed within their companies? Is primary motivation gross sales, net profits, ego, technology leadership, or something else? Getting to know your competition well enough to answer all those questions does not have to be difficult or expensive. There are several cost effective ways to gather intelligence, such as: Go "undercover" and pose as a customer to observe competitors firsthand. Become a small shareholder in a public rival to access information companies must regularly disclose. Find creative ways to speak with competitor customers to get their perspectives. Thoroughly read industry trade publications, books, and articles about key competitors. Attend industry events and spend time interacting with rival sales staff. Take advantage of any public records about competitors that might offer insights. Use online databases now available on the Internet and through various services. The right mindset is that competitors force you to work smarter, harder, and deliver better customer value. Never lose sight that this competition ultimately benefits customers. In the words of Thomas Watson Jr., founder of IBM, "Make no little enemies - people with whom you differ for some petty, insignificant personal reason. Instead, I would urge you to cultivate "mighty opposites" - people with whom you disagree on big issues, with whom you will fight to the end over fundamental convictions. And that fight, I can assure you, will be good for you and your opponent."
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