How to Deal with Business Competition? – 3 Proven Ways

How to Deal with Business Competition? I am facing a lot of competition in my business. My competitors are taking away all my business what to do? – I recently received this e-mail from a blog reader. 

Well, let me tell you, competition is part and parcel of business and you have to deal with it anyhow. 

But, If you are looking for some proven ways continue reading. I am going to share three ways To Deal With Business Competition.

Now, don’t you just hate competition? Now, if you are just starting out, you are probably competing with companies and businesses that are more established, have more resources, they have been around longer, or if you are the leader in your sector, in your industry, in your category, chances are you also have new companies coming into your industry trying to take market share from you, trying to take customers from you, right?

They offer different types of products. In business, we cannot avoid it.

We are dealing with competition every day.

So today I want to share with you some of my unique perspectives when it comes to dealing with competition, and just the way I view competition.

First of all, the competition that you think is your competition is not your only competition.

What do I mean by that? Think about if, let’s say you run a local gym membership.

Right, you run a local gym and you sell gym memberships, and you think you are competing with other gyms in your area.

I could tell you that simply is not true. If that’s the way that you look at the market, chances are you’re gonna lose because you underestimate the amount of competition that you have.

Because keep in mind, the customers that you’re selling to, only have so much disposable income that they can spend so it’s not just between choosing your gym versus other gyms.

It’s also choosing to spend money with you, spending money in fitness, investing in their own health, versus spending money maybe at Krispy donuts, or Netflix.

You have to look at it that way because they’ve only got so much money.

If you want them to spend money on your business, you cannot just think about I’m just competing with other gyms.

That’s a bare minimum, right? That’s who you’re competing with.

How to Deal with Business Competition? – 3 Proven Ways

#1 Keep your friends close and keep your competitions closer

Here’s what I do, I study for my competitions. I probably know my competition better than they know themselves, right?

I study them, I buy from them, right? I talk to their people.

I want to know what they’re doing, what they’re gonna do, and how they’re doing it.

What are some of the best practices? So I study, I’m on their email list, I look at if they have videos if they have social media, and I follow their stuff.

You have to know ’cause how are you gonna beat someone if you don’t know what they’re doing?

It’s very dangerous in business to think that, well, I don’t need to know what they’re doing, I just need to do my own thing, right?

Well, there are some things you could learn from your competitions, so don’t be so arrogant and say, there’s nothing I can learn from them.

No, I learn a lot from my competition, so that’s a great thing about capitalism, right?

That you could learn from other people, you could learn from your competitors, if they are successful, if they’re getting ahead, if they are getting customers. There is something that they are doing, chances are, that you are not doing.

It could also be they are providing a better service, a better experience, they’re selling a better product, or they’ve got a better team.

Whatever it might be, competitions challenge you to be better.

They challenge you to not get complacent. So it’s not such a bad thing.

So don’t be so afraid if they put us out of business. Don’t be so afraid of that.

If they put us out of business, there’s something wrong with us, right?

We are not keeping up, right? We are not delivering value, enough value to the marketplace or solving the customer’s problems the way that they want to be solved, so that’s way number one.

#2 Study the competitions, at the same time don’t focus on them

Now, you may be thinking, Shitanshu, I thought you just said keep your friends close and keep your competitions closer, doesn’t that contradict what you shared with me in point one?

No, study them, get to know them, know them inside and out, know their strategy, know their market, know how they’re serving their customers, get their products, or spend some money with them, right?

Because you get the best education that you could get. At the same time, you focus the majority of your attention focusing on how I add more value to my customers.

How could I add more value than anybody else? That’s the key, right?

Focus on your customers. So we study the competitions, but our attention, our focus, our energy, we spend that on how can we help our customers? How can we fulfill their needs better?

You know, sometimes I have my entrepreneurs, my executive, my CEO friends, they come to me and they visit me and they see what I do and sometimes they’ll get a, like a day in behind-the-scenes and I show them some things that I do.

Usually, the universal response is oh, I can’t do what you do, right? Oh my goodness, like how prolific you are and how much you get done, like how do you even do this, right?

Like you have like multiple clones that are running around to get this much done because the way I see it is that if someone can easily copy what you do, then you’re not very good at what you do.

Like I could tell people, and I share a lot of the best practices on my blog, and a lot of people ask me, well aren’t you afraid that people know your secrets and how you run your business?

I said, well, here’s what I do, go ahead and try it. It’s like Michael Jordan.

Well, here’s how I slam dunk and here’s how I, you know, play basketball, you go ahead and try to be Michael Jordan.

You can’t, so you start focusing on focusing on the customers and also focusing on your skills.

What do you need to do, and who do you need to be to deliver more value to the marketplace than anybody else? And that’s how you grow.

#3 Think long-term, not short-term

Instead of competing with your competitors on just one product or a campaign ’cause sometimes you see that. You see this in business a lot.

The competition is, say, selling a certain product at a certain price point and they do some kind of promotion discount and they lower their prices and then you feel like oh my God, I need to compete there otherwise I’m gonna lose, right?

Instead of being very reactive, think a little bit long-term.

Over the years, I have competed with so many people, so many enemies and opponents.

They are stronger, they are faster, they have more resources, they have more capital, but yet over the years I’ve won many battles, and the key to that is I think long-term.

Maybe I’ll lose the battle as long as I win the war.

That’s okay, so when I’m looking at it from that perspective, I know that maybe I’m not the fastest, and I’m never the fastest, not the strongest,

not the fastest, but I always have more staying power because I know for most people lose focus.

They get distracted, but that’s okay. I’m not trying to beat you in two weeks.

I’m not trying to beat you in one year. I could wait 10 years to win this war.

That’s the way I see it, I could wait, I got time. So when you think of it from that perspective, the way you make decisions, you look at it differently.

You’re not so rushed and you’re not making decisions that are just you’re reacting, right?

You are instead of thinking about it, planning it, and being more strategic.

So think long-term and not short-term and ask yourself what would you do differently.

If you’re now competing long game, right, you’re thinking long-term, what would you do differently?

And you wait, and you ask yourself how could I make sure I stick around?

How could I make sure I have enough endurance? to last longer in this game? And you know if you can last longer, you have that staying power, and you innovate, you’ll win. 

It’s just only a matter of time. 

Let me give you a bonus number four.

#4 Join Hands for Profit 

Also, sometimes if your competition is serving the same market that you’re serving right now, well instead of competing, why not profit from your competition?

That’s right, profit from your competition. Maybe you offer a complimentary product to the same customer base.

Well, instead of competing, if you’re thinking from an abundance mindset, why not partner up and form some kind of strategic alliance, some kind of joint venture?

You see a lot of big companies they do that all the time. Co-branding, collaboration, strategic alliance.

Why not do that and actually make more money for you and for your competition?

And then your customers in the marketplace get more value and they get better results. What’s the problem with that? Like I collaborate with other people all the time.

So if it’s the right fit, you can’t do a good deal with a bad partner, but assuming it’s the right fit, the same core values, and the product’s complementary and it is something that will help your customers, you could do that as well.

Example/ Case Study

Let’s take the example of Jio, Airtel, and other telecom players in the Indian market. Jio entered the market with a lot of capital, new technology, free internet, and a lot more. Now if we compare the competition between Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea.

Jio has increased its market share due to low rates. While Jio offered cheaper rates than Airtel, its quality of service was inferior. Airtel withstands for a longer period and focuses on quality and today Airtel and Jio both are leaders in Telecom.

Vodafone and Idea have joined hands to withstand competition and they are also doing well.

Airtel has applied the principle of thinking long-term (staying in the game -Point 3). Also, they have a focus on quality and studying competition (Point 1 and Point 2). Vodafone and Idea applied point 4 to withstand the competition of Jio and Airtel. 

I hope it makes sense.

So those are the three ways, no actually four ways to deal with business competition.