You can’t deny your competition but you can become a category of one and carve out your own lane. Listen to this week’s podcast to find out how. Or read the blog below.
How to eradicate the concept of competition
I got a comment on my Facebook ad saying we should all move into a new perspective around competition. That there is room for everybody in the market. And that there is no competition when you have unique gifts.
I welcome the opinion. It is lovely notion and to a certain extent I advocate this. I do believe there is room for everybody and that you can eradicate competition.
However, you cannot deny that there is competition. There are many people out there doing the same thing as you. No matter how far you niche down, you will find someone doing something similar to a similar audience. And there is a case to deal with comparison-itis, which can debilitate your progress.
But if you deny competition entirely, it is delusional.
Become a category of one
This is what I help people do in Elevate. It helps to position you as the number one in your space. Many people get triggered by this message. By saying number one, it assumes you have to stand on other people’s shoulders. That is not the case. It is about carving out your own area, leveraging a gap in the market that is not currently being served.
When you do this, you do not need to stand on other people. It is about becoming better for an ideal client.
Micro-niche
Within every market, there is a submarket that needs your help. For example, you have a group of people who all want to lose weight. This is a broad audience. Within this, you have people who want to lose weight for many different reasons. They want the same result.
This gives you a great opportunity to micro-niche, which is the first step to differentiate yourself from the competition.
It is about finding the motivation within your market. Understand what is going on for people within your market and focus in on this.
Create a USP
Go further and harness something that no one else is doing. Then you become an incomparable offering. People will then be willing to spend more money with you. And you cannot be compared to someone else. You want your ideal client to say, “no I need to go with this person because their service fits me and I cannot get this elsewhere.”
You want your prospects to go through this buying, logical process. It is about creating your Unique Magic Bullet. It is so important to figure this out. I have given this a new name because USP has become intangible. It is not going to be good enough to make YOU the USP. This is one person shouting louder than the next or being a better sales person.
You being the reason for your uniqueness is a cop out. It also causes some of the competitiveness out there. Where we would like to be helping our peers out within the market. You can’t do this unless you are willing to figure out what is different about you.
When you have a Unique Magic Bullet, you can own your space. And even turn people away to your peers if they are not your ideal audience.
I spent so long in my businesses trying to become different and was fed up with feeling miserable, comparing myself with others. I don’t want others to go through this. It’s not taught and it’s so easy to avoid feeling miserable.
You can’t sort out your unique magic bullet without also sorting out your micro-niche.
I love working with coaches were they do not feel in competition. Where they have logical reasoning as to why their ideal clients will pick them over anyone else out there. And the reason they are picking them is not to do with shouting the loudest, posting lots or being cheaper than the competition.
3 main areas to find your uniqueness
1. It is something you are already doing and you need to shine a light on it. For example, Sally, an expert mortgage advisor for the self-employed, is doing something different to everyone else out there. We worked together and pulled that to the forefront.
2. Finding a gap or what is missing. We did this with the adventure travel company by looking at what a certain proportion of the market wants. There is a certain proportion for the market that isn’t us. Those who don’t want frills or support, just want to get on the trip and do it – these are not our audience. We serve people who want to take on epic adventures but want support. They may be scared, or need to feel that support, and want someone to organise everything for them. They want the extra frills and support that is our Unique Magic Bullet.
3. Create your own scientific method. Understand why your methods work so well for your ideal clients. You need to be innovative and look at why your system works so well. You can come to your audience with a fresh, new solution that they’ve never heard before.
If you want to crack this and find what it is that makes you unique, plus create something unique in your business – join me on a call here. There are a number of options available with zero pressure.