I wanted to avoid competition. Instead, I ended up changing the way to compete.
I didn’t focus on them
We were born through competition. Those of us who are alive today are winners of the sperm race.
Our sperms competed with millions to form us. Hence, from the time our senses started to develop, one thing that has been hammered into our heads.
To Compete. Hard.
We compete in our studies. In sports. In business. In life. Because we must get ahead of others.
The only place where we do not compete is how to get ahead of others in death.
Competing requires focus. Energy. Dedication. And it occupies a lot of mind space.
Hence, we must pay attention to it as it occupies so much of our life.
I hate confrontation. But I am ambitious.
Competition leads to a lot of confrontations. So I wanted to avoid it. Hence, I thought hard about how to avoid competition altogether.
The answer came to me one day when I was preparing for the annual examination in my 2nd year of college. Students were busy figuring out how the other students prepared. The notes others were studying. The hours others spent studying.
But here is what I thought.
We were all competing to get the highest out of 100 marks. What if I prepared to get 100/100?.
That way I do not waste energy focusing on what others are doing. Instead, focus on competing with myself to get the full marks.
That thinking served me well.
I did get 93. I did come 3rd.
But that was a huge leap from the 11th to 15th rank I used to fall within.
That success inspired me. So I doubled down on it.
Several years later when I was building a social enterprise I studied competition in a different way
From the lens of competing to the lens of learning.
When you are starting a business you are going to be another player in the market. No matter the scale or size of the business.
You are also going to have a finite amount of energy, money, and time.
So your focus should be on maximizing those finite resources to serve your customer better. Why? So that they continue to come back to you. Buy from you. Avail your service.
Can you do anything more than that?
I don’t think so.
So how will studying competition help you in that process? It will help you to know what others have already been doing. How they have been doing it. That way you will not repeat the same thing. Unless you can do it better.
Knowing what other players are doing should inspire you to build on that. To offer what they are missing out on, to improve your customer’s life
When I was building a limb disability social enterprise, I studied competition too. I noticed that they were focusing on giving a superior device to others. They were restoring lost or dysfunctional limbs.
I focused on restoring human dignity.
That’s what the disabled wanted. That’s what we could offer to serve the disabled better than the competition.
Competition is going to be there. You should learn from them and focus on building better.
It’s like going for a long jog.
You notice the trees, people, passing vehicles, etc. but your focus is on your breathing pattern. Your focus is on getting your rhythm of running. Doing that you get into an effortless mode where you go on and on. Then you realize that you have bettered your last time.
Focusing on competition is something like that.
Look at them from the lens of learning only. Not confronting or competing.
You only compete with yourself to build a better business to serve the customer better.
When you learn you stay inspired.
Building a business is hard and resource intensive.
Hence, remaining inspired is vital.
It gives you the energy to go that extra mile. It helps you to bounce back from failures. More importantly, it helps you develop the mindset to serve the customer better.
I had studied all the other players that were in the space of disability services. Their product portfolios. Their business model. Their ways of serving the customer. Their point of view on the business of assistive devices. How they saw the category shape up in the future.
Learning from the competition was very enriching.
Naturally.
We were just a 3 member team functioning out of shared workshop space. I should have been shaken as I was leading the business-building effort.
Instead, I was inspired.
A lot of work had already happened. I had to build on that.
I also noticed that the other players were set in their ways of doing business. We were using technology to serve the disabled. Other players didn’t have that. So I proposed a collaboration model. I knew that we could not replace each other. But we could build on each other. That would serve the disabled better.
Most refused.
They were not flexible to try something new.
That didn’t disturb me.
I took notice of the other players. learned from them. But didn’t keep my focus on them.
Because my focus was on building a business to serve the customer better.
We hired a psychologist to address mental health issues related to disability. No service provider in the industry offered that.
We designed the devices with a natural look and feel to avoid public attention. No one was offering that.
We provided a ‘care package’ to make quality device ownership easier.
The list is long.
But you get the point about where our focus was.
Not on the competition.
Without competition, there is no progress
If you don’t like progress then you will remain focused on competition.
Instead, it should be the other way.
Make ‘competing’ a byproduct of your progress.
We competed too. We too approached similar sales channels as the competition. Hospitals, orthopedics, and plastic surgeons.
Often we won because we told the stakeholders human stories. Not device stories.
We designed our business model, process, and products with the mindset to assist the stakeholders to serve their patients better.
We didn’t go to sell devices.
We offered a way to progress together.
So
Study competition. Notice competition. But don’t focus on them.
It is like what Brue Lee said ‘The art of fighting without fighting.’
Leverage competition to progress. Not compete.
For ‘there is no enemy.’ Bruce Lee.
