9 ways to TOTALLY piss off your competition

November 21, 2007 3:14 PM

Ever meet someone who thinks EVERYTHING is a competition?

Kind of silly, isn’t it?

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with having a competitive spirit.

But it always seemed like a waste of energy to me.

A lot of misplaced, macho anger.

I think that when it comes to your competition, there’s no reason to be mean.

No reason to put them down.
No reason to slash their tires.
No reason to undercut pricing.
No reason to poach their customers.
No reason to talk smack about them on your blog.

On the other hand, there ARE some respectful things you can do (as incidentals of your company’s hard work and success) … that WILL really piss them off.

Such as:

1. Just be really, really good.
2. Call your customers back within the hour.
3. Email your customers back within ten minutes.
4. Have a really, really AMAZING product. (Something I learned from Frank Lucas.)
5. Be the first ten hits on Google.
6. Publish an article or column in the paper your competitors read every week.
7. Give informative and entertaining speeches at the civic clubs and chambers THEY belong to.
8. Have an AMAZING website that’s fun, not overly-salesy, builds online community, enables WOM, is content-based and gets LOTS of return hits.
9. Just be really, really good. (Did I mention that already?)

If you do those things, you will (indirectly) destroy the competition.

And you will win.

BECAUSE … you will have spent your time, energy, efforts, talents, money and skills delivering as much value as possible, not over-aggressively trying to win some corporate pissing contest.

In cone-clusion, I’d like to share a quotation from Richard Connaroe. He’s the author of one of my favorite rare books, Bravely, Bravely in Business.

“Stop making war on the competition and start making love to the customer.”

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What’s your theory on competition?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS…
In 25 words or less, post your theory here!

* * * *
Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag

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