There are two ways to view marketplace competition:
- 1] You can turn your attention toward your company and your path to becoming the best you can be, or
- 2] You can focus on others and lead yourself and your company away from the very success you desire.
The first choice offers a disciplined approach that positions you to face the reality of how you can improve business operations, make changes and enjoy the fruits of your intentional labor.
Spending your valuable time and energy on what other companies might or might not be doing and worrying about their success will ultimately limit yours. This mindset will also decrease the amount of happiness you experience operating your business and must be replaced with a more effective way of thinking.
Over the course of my career as a business coach and consultant, I’ve met with business owners who’ve lost their way in the face of what they perceived as competition. They adopted negative attitudes toward other businesses and owners, especially when those businesses excelled and captured market share.
In some of these situations, I’ve even seen business owners become angry with former customers for choosing what they deemed the better value provided by the competition. Having a negative mindset is not necessary or helpful and will lead to the loss of more customers, market share, team members, and possibly even the business itself.
All businesses in a given market sector vie for the patronage and loyalty of a limited number of customers. Rather than becoming embittered by others doing business in the same sector, choose to become empowered. Control what you can — how you, your team, and your company operate on a daily basis — and let the rest go. Strive to become better than you were the day before. Consistently reach for excellence in your operations.
Control what you can — how you, your team, and your company operate on a daily basis — and let the rest go.
- Remain aware of what the competition is doing, but focus on your business and study how it operates.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of your leadership, consider the performance of your managers and team.
- Look at the quality of the products and services you offer and discover where you can improve.
By taking this constructive approach, you’ll progress to the next level because your attention will remain fixed on how your company can stand out in the marketplace and become the best operation possible.
This self-focused approach to business is more important than ever. As businesses navigate the COVID pandemic, customers are paying even closer attention to the services and products they receive. They’re looking for value. Now is not the time to let them down. As a business owner, this situation could offer one of your greatest opportunities to stand out and gain market share.
It could be in your best interest to work with a qualified professional business coach and consultant to help you identify where you can make improvements and take action to operate an exceptional company.
Once you discover where you can improve, it’s vital you and your team work together to implement the corrective solutions that have been agreed upon. If you want to lead the way in customer satisfaction and loyalty — to stand out in your sector and grow — necessary changes must be made and followed through to completion.
As you focus on your business, you’ll quickly notice how much more you’re able to accomplish with resources previously allocated to concerns about your competition. And once you’ve made changes to improve your products and services, you’ll enjoy the increased happiness and success that comes from customers finding more value with you.
The business owners I’ve worked with have found this self-focused and self-accountable approach not only effective but also liberating.
They’ve discovered the empowerment, freedom, happiness, and success that’s only possible through the undistracted attention devoted to their operations and the task of creating great companies.
WILL YOU?
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This article was written for and published in collaboration with The Business Times newspaper. Access the article here.
