Competition? What competition?

“He who hesitates is not only lost, but miles from the next exit” Murphy’s Other Laws

There's a new blog out that focuses on companies that are " Tuned In" (http://www.tunedinblog.com/). In one of their posts they discuss why some new products/services fail. In this post they say "People who run tuned in companies largely ignore the competition".

Absolutely!!

This is a classic "are you market driven" scenario with Unit Sales up the Y-axis and Customer Satisfaction along the X-axis. The magic upper-right square is “Market Driven” on the “Path to Profitability”. The lower-left square is “Competitor Driven”, which of course puts it the farthest away from strong unit sales, good customer satisfaction and most damaging profitability. Why?

Chasing your competition means you’re a day late and a dollar short. Not to mention that once you’re clearly superior competitor sees that you’re chasing them you become subject to smoke screens and misdirection moves that cost you time and money and gives them great joy.

A friend of mine has this great poster of cowboys riding hell to leather down a hill with the caption, “You either make dust or you eat dust”. I grew up on a farm on a dirt road and I can tell you with certainty that eating dust is unpleasant.

Spend your time and energy paying attention to your market – your whole market. Yes, your competitors are part of that market and certainly you need to understand them and their strengths because casually dismissing your competition is just as bad as following their every move.

Spend your energy making dust.