Your Competitor is Not Your Enemy

Quick Insight

Someone who fears their competitor is someone who doesn’t think their product or service is better than their competitor’s. Fighting the competitor or market it futile. Circle back to the enemy – the need in the market – of your customers. Beat that and you’ll win customers

“Pick an enemy, not a competitor, to knock off. An enemy is something that threatens living things and the planet, not the marketplace.” – Joey Reiman in Story of Purpose

Your competitor is not your enemy.

When I worked at community banks, we helped each other out. We were all small and didn’t have the resources to build everything from scratch. Did we compete? Yes. Did we like to poke fun at each other when we met? Absolutely.

We were community banks with a common goal of serving the community. Our common enemy was a lack of funding or investments to improve the well-being of our community. Even though we competed in the community, we shared policies, ideas, and templates with each other to better serve all our customers.

Someone who fears their competitor is someone who doesn’t think their product or service is better than their competitor’s. Fighting the competitor or market is futile. Circle back to the enemy – the need in the market – of your customers. Beat that and you’ll win customers.

I wish you victory over your true enemy. I wish you well.

- Rob Stephens

Further Insight

Focus on providing more value to your customer than beating another company's price. Read more in the Inc. article How to Compete on Value, Not Price.

CFO Perspective Resources

Video: How Do You Create Value? - You get what you value when you provide value to others. Business success comes from creating value for owners, customers, and employees. I’ll explain how to discover and increase what each group values. I’ll also reveal the “Three D’s” and “Three P’s” that each group wants.
Course: Creating Value - Business Success from Shared Value - You get what you value when you provide value to others. Business success comes from creating value for owners, customers, and employees. In this program, you'll identify exactly what each of these three groups value and how to increase that value - and your success.

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