Are you guilty of this in your business?

19 Feb Are you guilty of this in your business?

Posted at 07:24h in Focus by

Do you sometimes find yourself getting a little, err, ‘distracted’ by what your competitors are doing?

Do they all seem to be doing so much better than you? More exciting products? More customers? Making more money? Living a better life?

What are you doing wrong and what are they doing right?

“Don’t compare your behind the scenes with someone else’s highlight reel”

Of course it’s important to understand your competitors – who they are, what they’re selling, who their target customers are, what their price points are etc.

BUT, don’t get sucked in to thinking that they are having a great old time and that your business looks pants in comparison.

What you are seeing is not necessarily the whole picture and you certainly don’t know about their journey to get where they are.

Rather than draining your energy with these negative thoughts, at times like these remember these 4 key points:

1. Bring your focus back to what is within your control

You have no control over what your competitors are doing, you can only control what you are doing. Therefore, bring your focus back to your own goals and what you can do right now to move nearer towards them.

Think of one small action you can do right now and go and do it. Taking positive action will make you feel so much better!

2. Be yourself

As Oscar Wilde said, “be yourself, everyone else is taken”.

I bet that ‘you’ are a big part of your business and part of what makes your business unique.

Focus on your strengths and working to these, being the best ‘you’ you can be.

I know you may be tempted to ‘copy’ bits of what your competitors are doing but please don’t. It will compromise you and your customers will recognise that it’s not really ‘you’.

Stay focused on what you are great at and what is important to you. Don’t get side-tracked!

3. There is enough for everyone

Just because one of your competitors is doing well doesn’t mean bad news for you. In fact, you could say quite the opposite. It shows that there is a demand for whatever you are selling.

Keep a view of abundance in mind and remember that there is enough business for everybody.

If you believe in scarcity then this is what you will find. If you believe in abundance then this is what you will find.

Make sense?

4. Reach out

How often do you connect with your competitors?

Remember what I said earlier about not knowing their journey? Well maybe it’s time to reach out and ask them.

Email them to let them  know you like what they’re doing and ask if they have any advice they could share with you in 1 sentence. (Make it easier for them to respond by limiting it to 1 sentence, otherwise they may have lots to share and not enough time to do it)

Ask them if they’d like to meet for a quick coffee (on you) and a chat.

Just keep in mind that they will probably be short on time too so make it easy for them to connect with you without taking up lots of their time.

Over to you now. Do you have any other tips to share or action you are going to take? Leave a comment to let me know.

 

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Alison Bradford

Alison Bradford is a business coach who works with smart, ambitious business owners to get clarity about how they can grow their business and increase profit. Sign up here to learn 6 easy ways you can boost profit in your business today.
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