Looking at your neighbour and wanting what they have is one of the most human traits you could find in a person. Yet the common advice is to not look at your competitors and to run your own race, which is honestly really healthy advice. I highly recommend it.
But here we all are and we spend a lot of time staling our competitors on social media, seeing the cool couples they are marrying and the awesome venues they’re working at.
What should we do about it?
Karl, a financial advisor, is quoted on Bernadette’s blog today with some really helpful words:
“I spent a lot of time paying attention to my competitors. But instead of worrying about what they excelled at, I wanted to know where they fell short. I found out what they wouldn’t do for their clients. And then I did the things they weren’t prepared to do for mine. Now, sometimes those things didn’t scale. They weren’t systems and processes I could easily automate. To an outsider that might have looked like a short-term disadvantage, but over time things that weren’t easy to replicate turned into my competitive advantage.”
Where do your competitors fall short?
View your competitors through this lens, but in a positive light.
An easy example might be that you consider me a competitors of yours (defining competitor as someone who is trying to eat the same slice of cake as you, not someone who wants a slice of the cake, but just not your slice).
If you were my competitor look at where I fall short:
- I don’t want to attend rehearsals
- I don’t value wedding traditions as much as some people
- My fee is high because my celebrancy business supports my family and pays a mortgage. Maybe your mortgage is paid and your partner has a job that covers the bills?
- I don’t read from a script.
What’s the story I don’t want to tell? You can, and maybe you should, tell that story.
