Who said that competition was healthy?
Like Grant Cardone, I totally disagree.
What’s healthy in business is domination and being the ‘go to’ in your industry for the product or service that you provide. When you are dominating your industry, you are providing the highest levels of customer service seen. When you are dominating your industry, people are simply wowed by your products.
Think about it. Those businesses that totally dominate have that ability to charge a premium for their products because the know that what they do delights their customers. They create raving fans. The raving fans don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
But, you’re probably wanting to say something like this. “Dean, I get it I really do. But, this is easier said than done and there’s no way we can price ourselves a premium. We’ll just price ourselves out of the market even if our services are first rate.”
Well for those in that seat (I know where you’re coming from), there’s a simple little tool that I use with my clients in establishing their strategic direction into the future. And this tool is the simplest way to determine how you can ensure that you make your competition irrelevant and deliver beyond your client’s expectations.
This tool, from Blue Ocean Strategy, is the Strategy Canvas. Now, I’ll show you how you can go about making your own Strategy Canvas.
Step #1 – What does your competition compete on?
This is the first essential step. You need to ask yourself questions such as “How much does customer service matter to us?”, “Do we compete on price?”, “Do our wines compete on age?”, “Does our circus compete on humour?”…. This list can go on.
Step #2 – Rank each of these attributes out of 10
Once you have identified the attributes and points of competition, give each a rating out of ten with one (1) being little importance and ten (10) being the greatest importance.
Step #3 – Plot these values on a line graph
Step #4 – What does your offering competes on?
So once you have determined the competitions strategy, you must then determine your current strategy in the industry. How much do you value the industry attributes that people are competing on? Are you competing or are you ignoring them?
Step #5 – Determine what your offering competes on that your competition does compete on
This is critical. This is the crux of ensuring that your competition remains irrelevant. Once you determine what you compete on and what the others do not, you successfully carve out a niche in the market place. This is the sweet spot which all small businesses crave. It is essential at this stage to work out how you can bring out these attributes (which aren’t competed on) that are valued by your clients through product development, customer service, pricing or the attribute itself.
Step #6 – Rank each of these attributes out of 10
Once you have identified the attributes and points of competition, give each a rating out of ten with one (1) being little importance and ten (10) being the greatest importance.
Step #7 – Plot these values on a line graph
Here’s an example of [Yellow Tail] wines from Blue Ocean Strategy….
