Stop Worrying About Your Competition and Focus on Improving Yourself.
Achieving your business goals requires clear, consistent thinking. If you're constantly worrying about what your competitors are doing, you're wasting valuable time and energy that should be used elsewhere. You need to get yourself out of the mindset that your competition is the enemy. By understanding what their actions mean for you, you'll be able to position yourself better in the market and proceed with confidence.
To improve your business and stay ahead of the game, focus on improving yourself — not what your competition is doing.
Several years ago I was listening to a Andy Stanley podcast and remember a story he told about Truett Cathy the founder of Chick-fil-A and their growth plans. During this time the Chick-fil-A restaurant was facing stiff competition from the upstart Boston Market restaurant and Zaxby’s and the management team was discussing the competition and how to grow the company when he said;
“I am sick and tired of listening to you talk about how we can get bigger. If we get better, our customers will demand we get bigger.”
Instead of focusing on the competition and how to get bigger, focus on how to get better.
Focus on Customer Service
Think about ways to improve your customer’s experience. For example, how can you make your customer service response time faster?
- Do you have someone always available to answer your phone during business hours?
- How quickly do you answer you phone?
- Can customers place orders and re-orders online?
- Can customers get answers to the questions and resolution to the problems on your website?
- Respond quickly and follow through. Respond to your customer quickly letting them know they are a priority for your business. Also, follow up after assistance to make sure their problem was solved.
The above customer service ideas are just a few of the things you should be doing to meet and exceed your customers expectations. It’s great customer service that keeps your customers loyal to you and your business and turns your customers into evangelists that will spread the word about your company.
Focus on Products & Services
Just like the words from Truett Cathy, stop worrying about what your competition is doing and focus on “getting better”. How can you improve on your current products and services? Here’s a short list of ideas, some are more important now than ever during these pandemic times.
- Do you offer a prepay option for your leagues?
- Are you currently offering Extreme Teams (virtual teams)?
- As novelty products continue to grow in popularity every year, and the number of products offered becomes greater every year. Are you offering the new product your customers really want? Is this an area where you could get better? For example, we started offering arm sleeves to our leagues this season and it has been an overwhelming success.
- Do you have online ordering and re-ordering?
- What are your turnaround times for league packages?
- Do you have new exciting and competitive fundraising programs or are you still offering the same thing you did 10years ago?
- What about graphics and designs? Are you keeping up with the trends?
Focus on Getting Better
- What are some changes you could make to get better?
- What are some things you’ve implemented during the last year to provide better products and services for your customers?
- Is there room for improvement in any of these areas for your studio?