Show notes
When I say your competition isn’t that good, that most of your competition is average, what I mean is that a lot of them are not taking the time to learn the things that will allow them to do things better.
David: Hi, and welcome back. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I say, your competition isn’t that good. Right, Jay?
Jay: Yeah, absolutely. Do you even know who your competition is? Do you know what they offer? Do you know what people think of them compared to you? Maybe you don’t even know if your competition is that good.
David: Exactly. And I hear, so many times, when I’m talking to salespeople, the idea that, there’s a lot of competition. Competition is very difficult. There’s a lot of online competition. There’s a lot of local competition. There’s a lot of price-cutting competition. There are all these different variations on competition.
And that’s all true. But a lot of them really, honestly, just aren’t that good. And if you recognize right up front that most businesses are average, right? There’s an average in every business, in every industry, there’s an average. And some people are better than average. Some people are worse than average.
There are a lot of average. So if you’re competing with the average or the less than average, then you should be able to do pretty well. If you’re a conscientious individual, if you’re reasonably good at what you do, if you study and practice your profession and you get reasonably good at it, you’ll be able to outperform a lot of them because to the extent that there are really exceptional competitors in your market, there are a lot less of those than there are the ones on the other side.
Jay: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve always believed this, you know, you can get caught up in the muck. When I was in radio, I worked for a radio station that had a built in listenership because it was so ingrained in the community. And what that did is it made it so they didn’t have to work hard to get sales or to get numbers.
Now you would think, oh man, that’s an amazing place to be. But what happened is, they started to get complacent, right? Everything was so easy, and then all of a sudden ratings started to shift and suddenly they realized, we don’t know how to sell. Because we’re so used to sitting at a desk and the phone is ringing. And we’re just taking orders.
So you’re not a salesperson, you’re taking orders, right? And their competitors started to eat them alive because their competitors had to sell all the time, and they were very good at it.
So sometimes you’re successful just in spite of yourself. And that may be what your competitors are in, what state they’re in.
David: It really could be as simple as that and as difficult as that, in either situation. But, you know, the idea that the competition is excellent, or the competition is terrible, or the competition is average. In a sense, none of it really matters.
Because this is life. This is the world that we’re in. These are the cards we’ve been dealt, right?
So our competition is there. We’re there. The question is, how are we going to make sure that we are outperforming our competition in all the key areas of customer contact? I mean, if you were to boil it down and say, okay, let’s say my competition is very good.
Let’s say you completely disagree with the premise of this podcast, that your competition isn’t that good, or that it’s average or whatever you say. “No, I’ve got a lot of competition.”
Okay, then that’s your question. How do you outperform your competition in all key areas of customer contact?
Some people may say, “well, I don’t know. What are the key areas of customer contact?” And if you’re asking yourself that kind of question, that indicates that there’s work to be done in your organization.
Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And do you even know how the competition functions to be able to compare yourself? I mean, that’s got to be at least half the battle, right?
David: Yeah, that’s part of the battle. Maybe it’s a third of the battle.
Jay: Okay.
David: I was gonna say a quarter, maybe it’s a quarter to a third of the battle. And the only reason I say that is I don’t think we should spend a ton of time overanalyzing our average competitors.
I mean, if there’s a really, really good one, yeah, you can take a look at what they’re doing. But ultimately, sure, we all want to outperform our competitors. But what do we really want?
We want to get to the point where we’re so good at what we do that it’s no longer about outperforming our competitors.
Now it’s a matter of outperforming our past best, right? What’s the best we were able to do? When you’re leading in a market, when you really are the market leader, you’re doing things right, you’re doing things well and efficiently, you’re already better than a lot of your average competitors, then the goal you want to reach for is how can I do what we do better in our own organization?
Right? How can we initiate contact better? How can we leave messages better? How can we send emails that are more compelling? What are the very specific things, all these points of customer contact that could potentially change for the better to get me better results?
Jay: Yeah, I love this idea that your true competition really is yourself, right?
It’s kind of like golf or, you know, another single person sport where you’re, really competing against yourself. And, if you can identify constantly ways to get better and you’re not falling into that complacency, then you’re probably going to do better than most of your competitors.
David: Yeah, exactly.
Something else that I read recently, was talking about the idea that a lot of us want to try to beat our best month ever, our best year ever. We’re always looking to top that top line, which makes a lot of sense.
But I read this in a book by Nic Peterson. He said that, ideally, our goal should be to beat our bottom.
In other words, sales are going to go up and down, right? That’s going to happen over a period of time. Sales are going to go up and down. We’re going to have peaks and valleys, and hopefully it works on an upward trajectory, and as you’re doing that, if you can make sure that the floor is constantly rising ,then eventually you get to the point where your floor is higher than other people’s ceiling.
And if you think about the idea of being better than your competitors, that’s really what you want. Cause if you have a great month this month, an exceptional month, then it’s like, okay, now the new month starts.
Now you’re at zero again. You got to start from scratch. Right? But if you know that your first goal for that month is to make sure that you’re above your previous floor. Then it seems a lot more doable. It’s like, okay, we might not have another peak month this month, but if we can stay above our floor, then we will continue to grow and grow.
Jay: Yeah, I really like that. I’m somebody who tends to look at records, right? Like we just finished a record month and I’m like on a high, right? Things are great, but you’re exactly right. I mean, next month beating that every single month, month after month. Is that realistic? I think you’re pointing out, no, it’s probably not, and it could be counterproductive.
David: Yeah, it’s probably not realistic that each month is going to be higher than the last, and there are not going to be any that are lower. But I think it’s also realistic to say, okay, can I beat our worst month? Or a recent worst month? It’s like if you look at a stock chart and you see how there are these different…
Jay: let’s call them peaks and valleys, ups and downs.
David: Yeah, peaks and valleys. So if it’s bottoming out at a certain point, you want to say, okay, I want to get in higher than that. It’s a terrible explanation, but you kind of get the drift.
Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And again, we kind of always fall back to this, is what systems do you have to track these types of things?
Do you understand the cause and effect? I mean, so often, yeah, you had a good sales month, or yeah, you increased the baseline, but do you know why you did that? Was it just the phone rang more? Or was it something tangible? Because if it’s not something tangible, how are you gonna repeat it?
Was it more calls? Was it more advertising dollars? What was it that got you there? If you don’t know, then the business is driving you. You’re not driving the business.
David: Exactly. And each of those things are some of these different areas of customer contact, right? Whether it’s the advertising, whether it’s the phone calls, whatever it is, when we’re looking at that, we’re saying, okay, where are these key points of contact and what can I do to make each of those better?
Can I make the messaging better? Can I tweak the messaging? Can I reach a different or better group of people? All these different things. Can I reach them using different marketing vehicles? Can I reach them online? Can I reach them offline? Can I reach them on the phone, via text, via email?
How can I reach them? And look at what you’re doing, look at what’s working well and what may be not working as well as it used to, and then say, okay, how could I tweak some of these things, the messaging, the combination of marketing vehicles we’re using, or the people we’re reaching, the MVPs, we’ve talked about that a lot in the past.
Which of these can I adapt, can I fine tune, like tuning in an old fashioned radio where they used to have dials on them, right? That type of thing. So you’re able to dial it in clearly and make sure that you’re getting the right people, saying the right things, using the right combination of marketing vehicles.
Jay: Yeah, we talked about this last time, avoiding assumptions, figuring out why you got that customer, right?
Cause you may be thinking, “oh, I had a new ad campaign or new marketing and this is why they came in.” And maybe it was a contact you had made with them a year ago. Maybe it was a bad experience with one of the competitors. Maybe it was something that changed in their business cycle. I think that type of communication as to why they’re there, why you were able to close them, you need to have systems to track this and, be open and honest with your customers to find out. What was it that motivated them to come to you?
David: Yeah, in our work with our clients, we talk a lot about intelligent repetition of contact, being in touch with people again and again and again, but without saying the same thing, without getting boring, without getting tedious, without driving them crazy, right?
If we can do that, that’s intelligent repetition of contact, and it makes it far more likely that you will be in front of someone when they’re ready to make that buying decision.
Jay: Yeah, I love that idea, but you’re still going to have competitors. So do you need to have some awareness of what they’re doing?
Or do you kind of say, I’m going to focus on me and I’m just going to be the best I can and compete against myself?
David: Well, I like that better. I like the idea of focusing on ourselves. What I’ve found though, is that in most markets, you don’t have to look too far to hear about what your competitors are doing.
Because if you’re reaching out to a new prospect and you hear about one particular competitor again and again and again, that tells you who is actually pretty good in the market. If you hear those names again and again and again, if you hear different people, each time you talk to someone, then it’s like, okay, well that’s sort of the average, that’s the industry.
But if you’re talking to a lot of people and they’re all saying the same thing and they’re all saying great things, that’s an indication that you have now found the leader in your market. So that’s what you need to target, then.
Then you may look at, okay, well, what are they doing? How are they doing it? How is it better than what we’re doing? Or is it? Is it not better than what we’re doing? But they don’t know what we do, so they can’t compare.
Jay: Yeah, and finding out, can I even compete with them in one particular area? Maybe that exposes a different lane for you where you can be competitive, right?
So it’s not like you have to play chicken with everybody. That may not be the best solution. We’re in a very unique industry because our products and services are so defined that I only have probably three competitors nationwide. And so when I talk to people, oftentimes, our competitors will come up and sometimes it’s in a good light.
Quite often, like you said, my competitors are average. They aren’t that good. It’s not hard at all for us to offer better customer service, better products, everything. I have found, that, a lot of people are like, oh, I hope they don’t go and research and talk to my competitors and get outbid.
I’m like, go and talk to them. Go and have that experience because I know you’ll be back and I’m in a better position when you come back. So that’s made us more confident than less confident.
David: Yeah. And when you have a small number like that, it is easier to know what each of them are doing. I remember in our promotional product business, back in the day, we had a situation where there was one competitor that wasn’t really known for answering their phones.
You try to reach them and you couldn’t get through to them. And so, if a sales person of ours, or if I was in a conversation with somebody and they say, “Oh yeah, we use this company,” sometimes I’d say something like, “Oh, are you able to get them to answer their phone?”
And very often they’d laugh. Because if you know this about a company, you can say something like that. Like, “Oh, well, they don’t usually answer, but I can usually get a call back.”
“Oh, okay. Well, if you ever get tired of that, or if you ever get voicemail and you’d like to talk to a human, here’s my card, right? That’s just a small example, but you basically look for the things that you know to be true about a competitor.
And I’m not saying you’re picking on them. I’m not saying you’re dissing them or anything, but you just point out a very obvious truth about them. And very often that will get their attention.
Jay: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I love it. How do people find out more?
David: Go to TopSecrets.com/call and watch the video on that page. See if it makes sense to have a conversation with myself or my team.
When I say your competition isn’t that good, what I mean is that a lot of them are not taking the time to learn the things that will allow them to do things better. And if you’re in that camp, if you’d like to be able to do things better and differently than your competition, if you’d like to be seen as the leader in your market, then by all means, TopSecrets.com/call.
Jay: All right. Fantastic, David. Always a pleasure.
David: Thank you, Jay.
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