Outthink Your Competition

Michael Cline

A GUIDE TO KEEP YOUR BUSINESS GROWING

Outthink Your Competition

Introduction

Competition is a great thing. Because of competition, we’ve seen an influx of innovation and an efflux of complacency. It’s our competition that keeps us growing and looking for new ways to win in our industries.

But competition can be fierce and if you’re not proactively trying to stay ahead and outthink your competition, you might find yourself out of the race altogether.

This guide will give you 4 ways to outthink your competition using marketing that keeps your company growing.

“In business, the competition will bite you if you keep running, if you stand still, they will swallow you.”

- Victor Kiam

Chapter 1

Attract the Right People

Traditional marketing methods like television commercials, magazine and newspaper ads, mailers, and billboards promise lots of impressions, but are those impressions actual people who will buy your product or service?

Imagine you own a store that specializes in tools and utensils for left-handed people. Now imagine that the only people who ever came in your store were right-handed people. Unless those right-handers were buying gifts for their left-handed friends, you’re going to go out of business pretty quickly.

Now imagine if the only people who ever came into the store were left-handers and they’ve been waiting for a store like yours their whole life.

You might be asking if that’s even a possible scenario. It is.

The premise of inbound marketing is creating the right content for the right person at the right time. All of your marketing efforts are

geared towards your ideal customer and giving them information they need and are looking for.

The first step in this style of marketing is creating your personalized buyer personas. According to HubSpot, a buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.

Once you’ve created your buyer personas, you’re then able to create marketing content that these personas want and need and are searching for online.

No longer are you wasting your time and energy talking to people who aren’t interested in your service. Leave that up to your competitors. You’ll quickly pull away from them and have a head start on completing sales to these qualified leads you’ve attracted.

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“If you want to keep growing, you have to challenge everything. Even your own thinking and beliefs.”

- Bill Gould

Chapter 2

Differentiate

In many industries, the water can become muddy when trying to distinguish one company from another. In the banking industry, for example, you’d be hard pressed to find a bank that doesn’t offer online banking, a mobile app, and other technology that makes the customer experience very easy. A bank can’t set it self apart by solely claiming they have great technology.

So what is it that separates you from your competition? What makes you Waldo? Sometimes you have to wear a red and white striped shirt so people can spot you in the crowd.

In differentiating yourself, find that unique thing that makes you, you, and talk about it.

(Photo credit: whereswaldo.com)

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“When positioning a brand, aggressively avoid becoming a "me too" by assertively being a "who else?”

- Crystal Black Davis

Chapter 3

Spending Money Wisely“You can always make another choice.”

- Iyanla Vanzant

As a general rule of thumb, most companies will spend anywhere between 5 and 10 percent of their total revenue on marketing to maintain their current position. Of course, if a company is looking to grow or push a new product line, they could spent upwards of 50% of their total revenue.

That being said, you don’t have to spend that money on marketing techniques that are out-dated and fairly ineffective at reaching your target customer demographic. As your competitors continue to spend money on traditional marketing services and media outlets, you can implement an inbound marketing campaign at a fraction of the cost.

Not only are you spending less money, you’re gaining more leads as we talked about in the previous section. The money you’re saving in your marketing budget can be utilized elsewhere to help your company reach other goals.

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Chapter 4

Find a Mentor

A mentor empowers a person to see a possible future, and believe it can be obtained.

- Shawn Hitchcock

Outthinking your competition can be tiresome. You’re choosing to implement strategies that many around you aren’t utilizing. That in itself can become draining, and at times, lonely. Finding a company or person, who has already implemented the topics we’ve discussed, and is having success will be vital in keeping you focused and inspired.

As you and your company continue to grow, you’ll find yourself being approached by others who are in your position now. You’ll be able to help them just as you were helped in becoming a stronger individual and leading a stronger company.

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“Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.”

- John C. Crosby

The End

Outthink Your Competition

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