I once had a basketball coach who loved to yell and scream out expletives. He couldn’t go more than two sentences without dropping a couple f bombs. Besides “What the f^ck are you doing” or “that’s some f’*cking bullsh!t”, he did another phrase in particular that he uttered more than anything else: “It’s not about what they do, it’s about what we do”. It’s such a simple and easily understood phrase, that must be why he said it so much. The phrase has been cemented into my brain, I can’t ever forget it but not just because I heard it constantly, but the meaning and power behind it. What he was trying to convey is, don’t worry about what the competition does or is doing. They may have some players who are bigger, faster, stronger, more skilled than you but that should not distract you from playing your own game. You guys all are good players and got here somehow, so stick to things that have made you successful. You can’t try to be someone else, particularly the competition, and expect to see positive results. You should not expect to beat someone at their own game. This goes way back to the classic David and Goliath story. No matter what the competition does, you must be focused on yourself and doing the things you need to do to perform at your highest level. You must understand your unique talents and how to most effectively use them. There can be a thousand different ways to win, a thousand different ways to “make it”. You must decide what makes the most sense for yourself only. Just because one way of doing something worked for someone else, doesn’t mean it will work for you.
There are so many things in our lives that are out of our control, but how we handle competition is not one of them. We have the ability to control our attitudes, decisions, and actions and we can never let someone else dictate those for us. We lose our power if this happens because we lose the thing that makes us unique. You cannot beat the competition at their own game. Here is another basketball analogy for you, imagine Lebron James and Stephen Curry were to play a game of 1 on 1. The two players use a very different style to be effective. Both guys are amazing at what they do, but it is difficult to compare them because their play styles are so different. Basketball in general serves as a great example of all the different ways there are to be effective. Shaq is very different from Chris Paul, yet both are great players. Tim Duncan is very different from Larry Bird, yet both are great all-time players. You don’t make it in basketball by following what everyone else does. These players understand their unique strengths and they take full advantage of them. Back to my original analogy, Curry is obviously known for his ball handling and 3-point shooting while James is known for his incredible combination of size, speed, and power. Curry could not win trying to play like Lebron, and Lebron would not trying win playing like Curry. Curry would try to shoot long threes and use his handles to get by Lebron, while Lebron would try to post up Curry and take advantage of his size in the post. They would both try to play their specific play style and trust that it is more effective than the other. You cannot think or act like the competition if you want to beat them. Focus on the things that make you unique and become great at them. That is how you become one of the best in the world.
When a competitor starts to threaten your position, you need to evaluate all the things you are doing well and not doing well. You need to look at the aspects of your business that are unique to the rest of the industry and the differentiating factors between you and your competition. Looking at those unique factors will help you gain a better understanding of why you have been successful. This is what gives you your competitive advantage. A competitive advantage does not only come from having a lower price or higher quality product/service. A huge component of gaining competitive advantage comes from reputation. If you are a new business in a crowded and cluttered industry, you may not necessarily have the resources to offer a higher quality product at a lower price. Therefore, it is important to build reputation right from the start. Business should be more than transactional, it should be transformational. Customers want an experience, they want to be part of something that is bigger than them, they want to know your story and why you are selling a particular product or service. When a customer understands these things about your business, they begin to identify with you and your mission. They not only want to support your business but be an advocate for it and tell everyone they know about it. A business owner should take a similar approach to that of a sports team. Sports teams aren’t just looking for people to buy a ticket or watch a game on TV, they are trying to build raving fans who will come back year after year. They want to help build a connection between the fans and the team. Once a connection is established, commitment becomes easy. If you want to truly gain a competitive advantage with your business focus on building a connection between your customers and your purpose as a business. Once your customers understand your business and feel a connection, they will transform from customers into committed members of your business. There is no more effective form of marketing than having raving fans who will support and advocate for you.
It is imperative to double down on your competitive advantage. Just because you are not focused on the competition and trying to imitate their success does not mean you should be ignorant towards your competition. There are some important elements that will help you get to know your competitor and the actions they might take. You must first understand what the competitor is doing and what they are capable of. This is good to know because it can certainly save you a lot of time and energy. Some of your competitors simply may not have resources – marketing, management, reputation that you have or don’t have the ability to improve in those areas anytime soon, so it is not worth any time and energy to gain complete understanding of that particular competitor. I highly doubt Nike is too worried about Big Baller Brand. But Nike is probably paying attention to brands like Puma or Reebok, since they are more established brands who have the resources to compete for an industry leading position. Also, if you know what your competitors are capable of, then you can gain a better understanding of possible future trends and moves that you can make in the future to continue to separate yourself. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your competition helps you focus on what makes your business special in comparison. Knowing your competition is important in business, but simply focusing on beating the competition will cause you to beat yourself.
I found a great example of focusing too much on the competition in Tiger King, a highly talked about, recently released documentary following the major players of the big cat game. The documentary is mainly centered around Joe Exotic, the owner of a big cat zoo in Oklahoma. It highlights the feud between Joe and Carol Baskin, a PETA member who also runs a rescue center for big cats. Joe becomes obsessed with Carol and wanting to see her go down. He threatens and tries to expose Carol in many videos and social media posts, leaves a snake in her mailbox and put on a display outside of her park. These are just a few of the many things he did to Carol. Eventually Carol sues Joe and starts to take some of his property and assets. Despite Joe not having sufficient funds to legally take down Carol he still tries to anyways. While all of this is going on, the workers and the animals are being completely neglected by Joe. Joes makes it his number one mission to take down Carol that he stops caring about anything else. Joe starts to lose more and more money and get in deeper trouble. To make a long story short, Joe eventually loses his park and ends up receiving felony charges for planning Carol’s murder among other things. Joe was so consumed with Carol and taking her out (literally) and was so worried about her that it completely distracted from what was most important to him, being his park and his animals. When you are too focused on beating the competition, it takes away from focusing on yourself and the things that are most important to you. You become the person that you’ve tried to see the competition become, a loser. By working hard to see someone else lose you end up losing yourself. Rooting for the demise of others creates superiority and entitlement. You feel like you are untouchable, and nobody can beat you so instead of continuing to focus on yourself, you place that energy and effort into taking down others. So many negative emotions fill up inside of you when the competition becomes the apple of your eye.
Life is a battle and the way to win this battle is by focusing on your unique strengths. You cannot try to beat someone else at their own game. It is much easier to deal with a loss when you know you at least stayed true to yourself. Staying true to yourself will allow you to always keep the main thing the main thing. In the long run you will always be better off by growing and improving yourself instead of trying to be like the competition.
Jonathan McClure / The Rolling J
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