- [Camera Guy] You don't want to talk about--
- Yeah, don't talk about the fact that I tried something new
and it didn't work out.
(upbeat music)
How do you compete against
established competitors in market?
Wouldn't it be awesome for you not to care
about your competitors, especially the big guys?
For them to be copying you even though you are like
I don't want them to copy me.
Yes, it is better,
because that means that you are doing something right,
or that anytime that they get mentioned in the press
you're company gets mentioned.
That's the right way to compete against a big competitor.
It can be frustrating especially if they're copying you,
especially if nobody is paying attention to you,
especially if you feel like they have more time
and resources to invest in their business,
and you're always trying to figure out the next step,
and the next leverage point.
How do you even make your product competetive?
In this video I'm going to share with you guys
the way I thought about competing against companies.
When I started my company Clarity.fm even though early
in launching the product it was innovative and new.
Shortly after, about six months after launching the company
we had a huge company enter the market.
I'm going to tell you the story,
company name rhymes with "boogle."
You know that was a crazy moment
and a lot of people thought what are you going to do?
How are you going to react?
Doesn't this mean that your idea is going to get squashed?
You know a lot of entrepreneurs might look at it this way.
The question I always ask myself is,
do I care more about solving this problem
than anybody else in the world?
The answer was yes.
Now the cool part is about a year after that
I got invited to actually spend time with their team
to understand kind of how they were thinking
about the product road map,
and how they were getting distribution and marketing.
I thought for sure their marketing was going to be simple
because they already had access
to hundreds of millions of people.
What I realized is that within big companies
even though their team was five times the size of ours,
their budget was a multi million dollar a year budget
to work on that product
they couldn't get the other departments
in their company to actually deploy their solution
to get more traffic and more traction.
They had to fight the same way we did
and that was really awesome, honestly, for me to find out.
That's where I realized that there's some best practices
that everybody can use when trying
to compete against established competitors in the market.
Number one is to pick a niche.
I don't care who you are if you are starting in a business
in a market that has established competitors
you need to find a niche.
Niche it to win it.
That means going deep,
not being, it's what I call subcategory.
It's not saying I'm going to build point of sale software
for small businesses, I would say go to one level deeper.
I'm building a point of sale software for flower shops.
I would go to another subcategory.
I would say I'm building a point of sale software
for flower shops in a region in Canada.
Just go super niche, super focused,
to allow you to really learn from that core customer
and then kind of expand after the fact.
Number two is for you to tell a great story.
You know when building a business especially if the
company is founder led there is probably a moment
when that idea came to you.
There's probably a frustration that you saw
where you were talking to somebody
and there's an origin story.
You have the opportunity, more than a established competitor
to tell that story.
Here's what I believe, the person with the best story wins.
Okay, there's origin story, there's product story.
That is for you to figure out and define
and to make sure that you integrate in all things
in your product and in your marketing.
That's number two.
Three is to have product hook.
When people go to your website, you need to figure out
how can I promise something that's super valuable to them
that they need and get them to experience that
as fast as possible?
That's the hook.
That's the promise on the webpage
that speaks directly to them.
It's why the niche matters so much,
it's why the story matters so much.
Number three is to have a product hook
because big companies try to be all things to everybody.
You have the opportunity to speak directly to them.
Number four is customer service.
You know, you can't scale caring.
The beauty of being a small start up
is that you have the opportunity
to really hold your customers by the hand.
You have the opportunity to reach out to partners
and say look I'm personally
going to be involved in this project.
I want to integrate with your solution
and my team is ready to go.
All resources are set up to do this, make this a win-win,
and I'm here to let you know that this is going to work.
Big companies typically don't have that resource,
I mean the truth is their teams don't care to that level.
I just think from customer service
and how quickly you respond to email,
to the ability to write custom thank you cards
to your early customers, to picking up the phone
and doing what I call smile and dial.
Every Thursday at Clarity I'd pick up the phone
and call five to six customers.
Just learn who they are and what they are about.
Really just connect with them and their challenges
so that I can make better product decisions.
That's number four.
Number five to me is find a transcending vehicle.
I got this idea from my buddy Gere.
When he was kind of analyzing
some of the fastest growing companies
in the world and he realized a lot of them found trends
or other companies that were on this growth trend
and they kind of attached themselves to those vehicles.
For example, Lululemon and yoga.
Yoga was growing as an industry.
Lululemon decided to really focus on that industry and grew.
I seen this recently with a software product
called Zen Planner.
They're focused on building a solution for CrossFit boxes
to be able to manage their membership.
Now Zen Planner didn't start off in CrossFit,
they started in martial arts,
but they made the pivot
when they saw the growth opportunity.
Transcending vehicles,
when there is an existing big company, right
in a market and you want to compete
you got to do these five things.
Number one you want to pick a niche.
Number two is you want to tell a great story.
The origin story, why you are doing it, is going to matter
so much to your customers as well as your team.
Number three is you've got to figure out your product hook.
Put it on your homepage.
Make the promise clear, focused, speak to them.
Number four you want to make sure that you deliver
the best customer service possible and connect with them.
Fifth, find a transcending vehicle.
Some market or other company, integrate with them,
that you see that they are growing, it's a trend.
That way it's going to help you build that market traction
so that you can eventually become the big guys.
What I want to hear from you below in the comments
is I want to hear your stories of how you've competed
against existing incumbents and competition in the market.
I would love to hear from your comments below,
in the comments below.
Hope you having a crazy good day, an incredible day.
I want to challenge you as usual
to live a bigger life and a bigger business.
I'll see you next week.
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Hope this video find you well, I'll see you next week.