Cheer up! Having a super-successful competitor can actually be GOOD for you!
Written by Julia Bickerstaff // February 10, 2015 // Daily Juice // No comments
I know that seeing a competitor do well might make you feel a bit frustrated, jealous or even like giving up. But actually their success can be fabulously GOOD for you TOO! Here’s how:
Here are two ways that having a super-successful competitor can actually work VERY well for you! So, if you’re feeling a bit glum because someone else’s business seems to be doing better than yours, take heart, there IS a rainbow!
1 The Bannister effect
The first GOOD thing about having a successful competitor is the ‘Bannister Effect’. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It gets it’s name from this story:
Back in the early 1950s elite runners were running the mile in just over 4 minutes. No-one seemed to be able to break the so-called ‘4 minute mile’. In fact many thought it was impossible. Then, on 6 May 1952, Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile with a time of 3:59:4. Just 46 days later another runner ran a mile in under 4 minutes. A year later 3 runners ran sub 4 minute miles and now a sub 4 minute mile is pretty commonplace for elite middle distance runners.
Do you see what happened there? As soon as Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile, other runners knew they could as well! This is called the Bannister effect and it works for us TOO! How?! Well when we see a competitor be super- successful we know we can do it too, and once we know we can do it, we do it! Ta-da!
2 The Education effect
The second GOOD thing about having a successful competitor is that they help us with our marketing! Especially if we’re selling something that’s a newish concept.
When we sell something new, a lot of our marketing effort goes into educating customers that what we are sell actually exists!
So let’s say we are making and delivering home cooked dinners for busy mums in our neighbourhood. We’ll need to do a lot of marketing just to inform people that they can actually buy, and have delivered, home-cooked food. Agree?
Now, imagine we find we have a competitor who is doing home-cooked-food-delivered too. Humph. And they are pretty successful. Aargh! But y’know it’s also GOOD for us! Why?! Well our competitor has done the hard work of “informing” the neighbourhood that home-cooked-food-delivered is a thing! Now all WE need to do is make our menu different and we’ve got a ready made market of people who know and like the idea of home-cooked-food-delivered but want a different taste. Hurrah!
This really is a super-important and under-appreciated benefit of having a successful competitor! Having them do all the ‘education’ work saves us money and effort! And you’ll be amazed how often when someone discovers that there is a thing (home-cooked-food-delivered, say) they then go and look to see who else does it. And, hey, it’s OK to be the ‘who else’ (as long as it doesn’t involve copying of course!)
Cheer up!
It can be a bit rattling to see your competitor become super- successful. I know! But it can also be just what you need to make your business better! And y’know – there’s plenty of room for all of us!
♡ YOU! ♡
Have you benefitted from a competitor doing well? What happened?!
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