Are you afraid of competition?

Posted by: Krishna De | Posted on: January 14th, 2006 | 0 Comments | Posted in: Uncategorized

Are you afraid of the competition? 

Are you sure you know who your competition is?

Why is is many of us get anxious when the someone new enters the market place?

One of my clients recently was getting anxious about someone she had seen working in the same field as she is.  Her market is headteachers in the UK of which there are 30,000.  She noticed that there was someone else who seemed to be offering seemingly similar services to her – from her view point the only difference was that they were male and based 300 miles from her.

I asked her how many clients she needed to have a fully booked practice – the answer was 10!  So she just needs 0.0003% of the head teachers populaton to work with her.  when I reflected that back to her did she laugh!

But seriously, competition is good. 

Alex Mandossian the super cool and very talented internet marketeer remarks that competition shows that there is a need for the solutions that you are providing to your target audience. 

Chris Barrow the very succcessful coach who works with dentists in the UK also commens that typically the competition can support your pricing model. 

In my experience, unless they are creating something that is effectively a commodity or looking for massive volume at low prices, if they are savvy marketeers it’s likely that their pricing will be pegged on or around yours therefore justifying your pricing to your customers and clients.

If you are a service professional what you need to ensure is that your unique personal brand comes through – that may be your personality, your expertise or the way that you deliver your solutions.  Your message needs to resonate with your ideal clients – that’s what will connect them to you.  It’s important to be distinctive and to be clear about who is NOT your ideal client so that you don’t waste precious resources speaking to people who you don’t want to serve.

And don’t forget that cool tool that I mentioned in my last post that you can use to research your target audience – you can also use it to see when your competition are mentioned on the web or in the news.  Check out Google Alerts and make sure that you keep one step ahead of your competition.