Your Biggest Competition is Probably a Hack
We often think that a rival offer will be our main adversary in business, but what if I told you that your most intense competition might not be another company at all? If you think of your offer as the solution to a problem, only a small part of your competition will come from other people who do what you do. There’s a possibility that the bulk of it is coming from whatever your customer is doing to solve the problem now.
Let’s say you are a massage therapist and you specialize in relieving neck and shoulder pain. If your customer has that problem they might currently be trying to solve it another way. They might soak in a hot bath, take a pain reliever, or just ignore it.
Or let’s say you are a coach that works with families with teens that keep landing in trouble. If your customer has that problem, they might not even have an idea that your solution exists. They may think their only choices are to find an adolescent therapist or wait it out, hoping for the best.
So to bring them in as a customer, your job is to:
- Get their attention by sharing that there are alternate solutions for the problem, and
- Convince them that your solution is better than whatever they’re doing now
Doing Nothing Is Easy
For most people, it is much easier to default to doing nothing in the hope that the problem will go away rather than taking action. Inertia and habit play a significant role in consumer behavior. The best illustration I know of this is laundry detergent. When you first started shopping for yourself, which one did you pick? Tide? All? Gain? Why? It was probably whatever your family used when you were growing up. People often stick with what they know, even long after more efficient or effective solutions come on the market. (I don’t want to admit how late I was to the pod party, but I’m proudly an early adopter to the detergent sheets).
This is why I talk about the importance of trying to find a Poison Ivy Problem. One that’s so annoying and persistent that action will triumph over the easiest way – taking no action at all. Additionally, customer insight interviews are a great way to uncover what alternatives your customers are using.
Should You Care if You Have Competition?
I’ve talked about competition in this space before, and generally I believe that discovering you have competitors who do what you do proves that there’s a market for your services. But what about these competitors who do something else but who focus on the same problem you do? An example of this might be a professional organizer and a wardrobe consultant, both who focus on the problem of an organized closet. I think it’s still a good thing because it proves the problem exists and that people are willing to pay for a solution.
How to Get in the Game If You Have Competition
- Begin by acknowledging that your customers are already trying to solve the problem you address. Make their current approach your starting point.
- Be sure your offer is clearly aligned as a solution to their challenge, however they define it
- Think about how you can position the benefits of your solution over other methods. Does it get results faster? Are there negative things they can stop doing as a result of your approach? Is it less expensive than the alternative? Does it deliver a superior or longer lasting outcome?
- Clearly communicate the problem you’re solving and the outcome you deliver in your messaging.
- Leverage testimonials and social proof. Showcasing success stories and positive customer experiences can be particularly powerful when you’re competing against doing nothing.
By broadly defining competition to include what your customers are already doing to solve the problem, you can better develop the messaging around your offer and outcomes. Inertia and habit are powerful forces, and your best tools to break through include focusing on a Poison Ivy Problem and then helping them visualize what life will be like when the problem is gone.
This post is part of a series: 8 Secrets to Designing an Offer People Want to Buy
