How To Steal Someone’s Competitive Advantage
Plenty of people are put off starting a business because they see that a particular market is filled with big players that have huge competitive advantages. In some cases, this is probably a good thing. You probably aren’t going to corner the automated vehicle market before Google or Uber.
In other cases, it’s a bad thing. Especially in new industries, start-ups can “corner” the market long before they have any real reason for their monopoly.
This is a bad thing for the consumer in general, but it can be a very good thing for the young entrepreneur.
In this article, I am going to show you an example of what I mean. This article will be about recognising a company’s competitive advantage and taking it.
What Is A Competitive Advantage?
Companies don’t get to be the big players in their league just by accident. They either have some technological advantage over their competitors, more money to spend on marketing, or as is commonly the case in companies I work with, they simply have a better call to action and better understanding of what the target market wants.
It’s worth noting that none of those things are impossible hurdles to overcome if you want to compete. You can hire a copywriter who will help you direct your marketing campaign better. You can bootstrap and use cheap methods of marketing to make money, and technology is moving forward all the time.
Yet, when you speak to the other crabs in the bucket, they will say, “But you can’t do that; somebody else has already done it!” as though having an idea means you have a monopoly on it forever.
That is obviously not the case, and in the next section, I will give you a point by point overview of how to overcome this.
How To Steal A Competitive Advantage
Firstly, look at the big players in your market. What are they doing and why are people going to them? This seems really simple, but it is a large part of working out what makes the market tick.
Are there any insurmountable barriers? If so, move onto the next idea. Ideas are really simple, and you can always have more. Wasting your time on a bad idea is not a good use of your time in any case.
What is the key call to action or unique selling point for the biggest player? This tends to be something really simple that everyone overlooks.
For instance, I was looking at a ridiculously priced online service today that allows you to create online courses. It cost one thousand dollars a year.
Now, if you are even remotely into web design, you know that one thousand dollars a year to host an online course is an exceptional amount of money.
The reason this company does well-and it does very well-is that they provide the solution very simply. The average part-time textiles teacher (or whatever) doesn’t want to learn how to post videos or research all the different ways of taking payments, so this company does it all for them.
That is their entire competitive advantage.
Once you’ve found the competitive advantage, work out how you can do it cheaper, better or otherwise promote it differently.
For instance, somebody who doesn’t want to learn how to build a website and hosting online course could be your customer.
You have to compete with companies that are charging one thousand dollars a year to host courses.
Can You Provide A Better Service Or Cheaper Service Than That?
If you know something about web design, then sure you can.
You can put together a package where you set up video hosting using one of the cheaper options., Website design using WordPress and a premium theme, and get your own reseller hosting or buy separate hosting. You could also buy a developer edition of a membership plug-in and you’re almost there.
There will be details, but you can work them out. For a few hundred dollars investment, you could put together a package whereby you create a website, upload the course, and install the necessary membership plug-ins and checkout integrations.
This is not hugely difficult, it doesn’t cost a lot of money, and it’s accessible to pretty much everyone.
Why isn’t everyone doing it?
How To Market To Your Competitors
I’ve already given away far too much information in this article.
I know though that some people are going to say, “but… If it was this simple, then why isn’t everyone doing this?”
Most people don’t know anything about their market, the businesses that are in it or business in general.
To take the example above, a lot of people would be dissuaded, thinking, “Yes but this company charges all this money and it has all these customers and so there’s no way I could break into that market with just a shoestring budget and a simple solution!”
Those people would be wrong. The simplest way to break into this market is to find a list of all the people using that software (and paying one thousand dollars a year) and direct market your solution to them.
It can be as simple as sending an email saying, “I hear you’re paying one thousand dollars a year for this service. I can give you it for five hundred dollars as a one-time fee and twenty dollars a month thereafter.”
Forget the size of the business you’re competing with. Don’t worry about complex marketing systems or anything like that. It doesn’t matter.
Remember, you are targeting the same people, and people with the same problem, as any of these big companies.
More importantly, you are providing exactly the same solution to exactly the same problem as a big company.
In business, all that matters is the problem and the solution.
If you can reduce a market down to this level, then you can nullify the competitive advantage of nearly all of your competitors.
Final Thoughts
In this article, I’ve talked about how to generate business ideas, find target markets and target customers, and nullify the competitive advantages of companies in the market.
I’ve also talked about breaking down your marketing into a simple campaign.
I think I’ve covered about everything you need.
Hell, I’ve even given you a free business idea that’s potentially worth a lot of money.
You are welcome, and I’d act on this quickly. I might take it down and do it myself!