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Your Competition, Isn’t

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Day 16 of 21 days with Chuck’s new book, Why Employees Are ALWAYS a Bad Idea

I’ve personally landed millions in contracts from small companies to giant technology and pharmaceutical corporations, and I’ve never once thought about “competition.” It has never been a factor. I actually don’t think I have any, and I don’t believe you do, either. If you think you do, you just might be thinking like an Industrialist.

Stop Watching the Competition
Competition is a business disease of the Industrial Age which is very closely related to scarcity disease. In the Participation Age there are a lot of reasons why you shouldn’t be worried about people entering your market, coming up with great ideas you haven’t had, or improving on yours.

People who focus on trying to figure out what makes their competition successful don’t have enough good ideas of their own.

General Motors wasn’t created as a car company, but as a holding company. It didn’t create anything, but for decades watched the rest of the car market closely and bought car lines that others had created and worked to destroy those they couldn’t acquire. Their DNA was Industrial – find somebody else’s good idea, capture it and keep anyone else from coming up with an idea that might threaten that status quo product.

GM is not alone. United Airlines carefully watched Southwest grow and draw their customers away, then tried to mimic their success by repainting some of their airplanes and calling the new thing TED. Most long-term United Airlines passengers saw it as what it was, a bad clone of Southwest. United was too busy watching Southwest to come up with any great ideas of its own. Many in the market, in reference to a mule’s behind, simply starting calling TED “the back half of UniTED.” As with GM, United’s DNA is not creativity or innovation. Their DNA is dominating the world by maintaining the status quo, a futile exercise in a rapidly changing world, as they have found out.

In contrast, for years Apple was well known for focusing internally for its competition, and regularly destroyed not only the status quo in the market, but their own products which were still selling very well. When you live in a world of abundance you know you have a great idea inside you, and your responsibility is to uncover it, not steal the other guy’s great idea.

Mimicking Your Customer’s Products and Services
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it’s a lousy business strategy. The two last words of a dying marketing program are, “Me. too.” Again, United’s TED experiment is a grand example of this kind of tom-foolery. They took the facade of Southwest’s secret sauce and made a movie prop out of it with no building behind the facade. The result was a transparent attempt to mimic another company without the dedication to their core principles, strategies or infrastructure.

Great companies are too busy fleshing out their own ideas to follow others around their industry like mimes at a busker festival.

Focus on your client’s needs, not your competition’s products.
In general, companies that are doing it right are
1) focused internally on their own creativity and
2) on what their customers want.
Never one or the other – always both. Henry Ford said, “If I had asked my clients what they wanted, I would have made a faster horse”. Ray Kroc and others had to invent an entire industry (fast food) in order to sell their products. Their customers did not tell them they needed that. We should be in front of what our customer even knows they need, and working to get them that before they realize it’s potential.

In some cases we get our best ideas from our clients, and not listening to them carefully would be lazy and or arrogant on our part. In other cases our offerings are a combination of our own ideas and something our customers demonstrated they need (even if they didn’t express it). And in all cases our customers help us refine our products and make them better.

If you focus first on coming up with good ideas of your own, and then on meeting the needs of your clients, you won’t have time to focus on what other providers are doing.

You’re a terrible guesser, anyway.
I’ve seen companies dissect the products, services or marketing of other companies and copy them, only to find out they were mimicking the worst part of what the others were doing. The copycat thought that “X” made the other company successful. The other company might even believe it. But quite often whatever they copied doesn’t work because it’s out of context or some small condition is missing that made it successful.

But worse yet, mimicking others speaks of a culture that has little or no foundation of its own. Copycats make cheesy Industrial Age products that never lead them to the next great idea. The two last words of a dying company are “Me, Too.”

Explorers and pioneers don’t mimic others. One of the best ways to ensure you are irrelevant is to mimic other people’s successes rather than create your own. That mimicking strategy is fundamental to a world of scarcity, and shows a lack of originality, passion, cause, mission, or joy in what you do.

They won, good for them.
If someone “beats” you, they simply have something the customer needs that you don’t. Rejoice for the customer. If, in turn, you sometimes have things other customers want, you’ll attract those relationships and the other guy won’t.

Wandering Generalities
“Are you a wandering generality or a meaningful specific?” – Zig Ziglar Companies that focus on their competition are wandering generalities , built on a mimicking other company’s successes instead of creating their own. They’re just building cash cows.

The bottom line
In the Participation Age, companies don’t focus on competition, or even the recently popular term “coopetition”. They focus on getting better, making their industry better and making the world a better place to live both through creating more useful products and by their value to society.

Get the idea of competition out of your head and focus on being the best at whatever great idea you’ve birthed. And while you’re at it, try to figure out how to make the other guy successful, too. You’ll make a lot more money and have a lot more fun. And Stakeholders will come running to you work for you.

The 21st Century Industrialist Is Not a Capitalist

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Day 4 of 21 days with Chuck’s new book, Why Employees Are ALWAYS a Bad Idea

The 21st century Industrialist is one of the core business diseases to come out of the Industrial Age. “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful; that’s what matters to me.” – Steve Jobs

People who hate business think that Wall Street and all it’s excesses, actually represents capitalism, and therefore hate Capitalists. Capitalists want to do “something wonderful”. But Wall Street and most of the Bigs of today are not Capitalists at all. They are just old-fashioned Industrialists running smokeless, digital factories. I’m a fire breathing, rabid Capitalist who wants to do something wonderful. I can’t find anything in common with either the Industrialists of the 1800s or those of today that masquerade as Capitalists.

Attributes of the 21st century Industrialist
Following are six distinct attributes of a 21st century Industrialist that separate them from traditional Capitalists who are focused on doing something wonderful.

Attribute #1 – Being Big vs. Being Great
Being big, not being great, was the primary driving force behind the famous Industrialists of the 1800s. 21st century Industrialists like Microsoft, GM, the publishing industry, and most banks assume it is the holy grail of business. For them, being big trumps being great.

Attribute #2 – Closed Markets
The Industrialist’s goal was not to be the best, but to destroy everyone else in a zero sum game of dog eat dog. The modern day 21st century Industrialist works hard alongside politicians to keep the markets closed to small newcomers.

Attribute #3 – Resistance to Progress – Status Quo
Industrialists are brilliant at squeezing the last dollar of profit out of the present market, and are unparalleled at doing so. But this massive investment in legacy systems make it very difficult to adapt and move forward in a fast-paced world. The constantly changing world threatens the Industrialist’s dominance, and puts them at an extreme disadvantage to newcomers. Progress is the enemy of the Industrialist. The status quo is their friend.

Attribute #4 – Users, Not Creators – The Cash Cow Rule
Industrialists rarely create, invent or innovate. They are users of existing products, services, sectors and industries in order to gain power for themselves. They look around for proven winners that can be controlled and spun up to great efficiencies, with bigger opportunities to dominate and be powerful. It’s about building a cash cow, not creating or innovating.

Attribute #5 – Focus on the Competitor (Destroy, Mimic, or Buy)
Industrialists worry a lot about what the other guy is doing, because the other guy could end up creating something that will take market share away from their fiefdom. Instead of focusing on being more creative, they work to destroy, mimic of buy those who might threaten their control.

Attribute #6 – Short-Term Decision Making
Businesses controlled by investors make almost all of their decisions based on what is good for the company’s quarterly report, even if it hurts them in the long run, which it usually does.

Industrialists Are Not Capitalists
Let’s stop lumping Capitalism in with industrialism. Instead, let’s identify which companies are embracing 21st century Industrialism for their own short term gain, and which ones are focused on building sustainable companies that Make Meaning in the world around them, for the benefit of everyone in the process.

This is a summary of a chapter of Chuck’s new book, “Why Employees Are ALWAYS a Bad Idea (And Other Business Diseases of the Industrial Age)”. Click here to pre-order this new ground breaking book at a discount on IndieGoGo.com until July 28.

Your Competition, Isn’t.

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Scarcity thinking will keep you poor.

I’ve sold millions in big contracts and small and never once thought about “competition.” It’s NEVER a factor. I don’t think I have any. I don’t believe you do, either. If you think you do, you’re probably not thinking straight.

Big business loves to teach us to do “SWOT” analyses” where the “T” is for “Threats”, those evil competitors who are going to swoop in and steal our clients any day. The only threats you should ever be worried about come from within your own company and your own head.

The problem is bad thinking and bad strategies on your part. Here’s some examples:

You either live in a world of abundance or a world of scarcity, and whichever one you choose affects everything you do.

This isn’t woo-woo crap. This is hard-core success thinking. If you live in a zero sum world then there’s only so much to go around, and you better get yours before the next guy gets his. If you live in a world of abundance you figure out how to help other people be successful so that you can be, too. I do a weekly lunch with 50-60 business owners and regularly have “competition” there who “steal” potential clients. I’m glad they find clients there. I do, too. Everyone says it’s the best weekly lunch environment they’ve ever been around, because it’s based on living in a world of abundance.

People who focus on trying to figure out what makes their competition successful don’t have enough good ideas of their own.

We don’t have time to figure out what others are doing – we’re too busy trying to breathe life into our own ideas. Focus on getting better, not on your competition.

Focus on your client’s needs, not your competition’s products.

I expend a lot of energy figuring out what my clients need (which isn’t necessarily what they always want right away). If you do that, you won’t have time to focus on what other providers are doing.

You’re a terrible guesser, anyway.

I’ve seen companies dissect the products, services or marketing of other companies, then mimic it, only to find out they were mimicking the worst part of what the others were doing. The mimic thought it was what made them successful, and so did they. They’re thanking the mimic for helping them see it clearly while the mimic goes out of business.

The two last words of a dying company are “Me, Too.”

The best way to ensure you are irrelevant is to mimic other people’s successes rather than creating your own. That strategy is fundamental to a world of scarcity, but worse yet it shows a complete lack of originality, passion, cause, mission, or joy in what you do. And it means you’re only in it for the money. And people who try to make money make a lot less than people who birth something the world can use.

If someone “beats” you, they simply have something the customer needs that you don’t.

Rejoice for the customer. If you also have things other customers will want, you’ll attract those relationships and the other guy won’t. When you try to be all things to all men you become nothing to anyone (a wandering generality vs. a meaningful specific – Ziz Ziegler).

If you have something meaningful to offer, you will get customers. If you don’t you won’t. Blaming “competitors” for “losing” contracts is nonsense. Just get better in a few things and go deeper, not wider. If you’re not losing a lot of opportunities, you’re too wide and likely are delivering on the edge of mediocrity. Not a great long term strategy.

The bottom line

Get the idea of competition out of your head and focus on being the best at whatever great idea you’ve birthed. And while you’re at it, try to figure out how to make the other guy successful, too. You’ll make a lot more money and have a lot more fun.