MBA1364 How To Compete In a Highly Competitive Market

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Whether you're a business coach, a fashion designer, a fitness expert, or sell a software with several competitors, just having a great product is just not good enough. When you have competition, your customers will ask the question, why you? Why should they go with you? Opposed to the other choices most people give the answer, well, we're better. Unfortunately, that's subjective and it's not a clear and competitive reason for a customer to choose you. It's too nebulous. So in today's lesson we're going to talk about exactly what to do if you're in a competitive market. A strategy that will sound counterintuitive at first, but is really the only way you can really compete. Trust me, I tried, failed and learned the hard way. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Full disclosure I have two businesses, both in highly competitive markets. One, the Business Knowledge and Information Space. This podcast, the Hundred Dollar mba. There are hundreds and thousands of people that can teach you how to start a business, how to build a business, how to grow your business from where it is right now. The other product we sell is a software product called Webinar Ninja. Our webinar software Highly Highly Competitive Market recently did a competitive analysis and we have over A dozen big competitors in the webinar space. So this is a challenge I'm very familiar with. And I've been trying to battle this challenge for years. And at first I was very unsuccessful. I just thought I had to be better. I just thought I had to just focus on the product and make sure everything is great. What I didn't understand is that that's a given. Your product has to be great, your product has to be good. So when people actually try you, they don't leave you. What was not clear was how do I allow people to choose me over my competitors? And the answer is, you have to specialize. You have to. A lot of us don't want to do this because we feel like we want to cast a wide net. And I was actually able to do that at the start of webinar ninja five years ago when I started it because I didn't have that many competitors. And it was easy for me to say we're a product for everybody. And because there were a handful of competitors, I was just going to get a slice of the pie just by default. But now that just doesn't cut it anymore. And if you're in a marketplace just like that, you know what I'm talking about. If you're a business coach, there are so many business coaches out there. In fact, it's a billion dollar industry. Yes, a billion with a B. So how do you specialize? Well, let's take the business coach example for a moment. Let's say I am starting a new business. I'm a first time entrepreneur and I'm looking for a business coach to help me get to the point where I can be able to make a healthy living so I can make it my full time thing. So I just painted a picture for you, a customer for you. That type of customer. They're going to see a sea of coaches out there. They're going to do a Google search, they're going to ask their friends and family, they're going to ask forums and Facebook groups and there's gonna be a wide range of coaches. But how do you talk directly to this person? So they're like, you know what, this is what I'm looking for. This is why I'm gonna choose this person to be my coach. Well, you gotta fulfill their specific needs. You gotta be really be a specialist. So if your specialty is to get new entrepreneurs to $5,000 a month, zero to 5,000. That's your job. That's what you're really good at, getting them to that point. That's your superpower. That's what you offer, that's what you do. And you just focus on that. Hey, I'm the coach to get you to 5k. If you're beyond 5k, you're not for me if you say, yes, I have a package for people beyond 5k. It waters down your value for the clients that are looking for something from 0 to 5k, people that are just getting started. You want to talk directly to your customer and a customer. And when you serve everybody, you serve nobody. So you need to get specialized. So your specialty is, hey, I'll take you to 5K. Somebody who's getting started will be attracted. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm looking for. Somebody will get me to that point. And the truth is, what gets you to 5k is not going to get you beyond 5k, you know, to 50k a month. You're going to need a different coach. And that's okay because there'll be a different coach that will be doing that. And guess what? You won't compete with that coach. In fact, you can partner with that coach. All the coaches that get clients that are still haven't gotten started, they'll be like, hey, I don't coach people at that level. I coach people from 10 to 50k. Let me refer you to a good coach that does, and you're that coach. That's what specialization does. It carves out a slice of the pie for you. Otherwise you're reaching for table scraps, you're not speaking to anybody, and you can't get traction. You. You know what I'm talking about. That feeling, which is like, no one is paying attention. Everybody's ignoring my offer. So you want to get as specialized as possible in your competitive market. Make it your tagline, 0-5K. I'll get you there. Whatever it is, make it clear that this is what you do. Make it part of your marketing. Make it a part of everything about your brand. Put it into your FAQs. Hey, I'm already making 5k. I'm looking to get to 50k. Are you the coach for me? Unfortunately, no. That should be the answer in the faq. In order for you to say yes to the right clients, you got to say no to the wrong ones. And there's plenty of right clients for you to take if you specialize. The same thing goes if you have a product. How is your product differentiated from the competition? Again, just being better is not enough or saying you're better is just not enough. We're different because we do one specific thing very, very well. If you're buying our product, so, so you can accomplish 1, 2 and 3. That's what we are for. That's really our focus. A good example of this is moo.com moo.com these are business cards that are very, very high quality. If you're looking for the highest quality business card, the business cards that have some weight, that just feel expensive in your hand, then you're going to want to go to moo. There's a lot of other options if you want best value, cheapest price, fastest delivery, all that kind of stuff. But who do you think MOO tracks? People that are like, hey, I got time, I got money. I just want the best business card known to man. I want to stand down. When I give my card to somebody, I want to be like, wow, this is a nice card. This person must take their business seriously. This is not a plug for Moo.com, but it's just an example. That's their specialty. I talked about coaches. I have a business coach. His name is Dan Martell. And Dan Martell doesn't just bring on any clients. He's very specific about who he can coach. He specialized in only SaaS businesses, software as a service businesses. Not only that, you have to be making, I believe, at least 10k in monthly recurring revenue. So you gotta have some traction with your business. You have to have a product that actually is validated that people like, that people want. He also will not take you on if you don't do the work. You actually do a contract where he says, I'm going to give you some assignments. If you don't fulfill those assignments, then this relationship is going to end. If you don't do what you need to do to grow, it's just not going to happen. We're going to part ways. So he's gotten very laser focused. Now you might be saying, well, how many people fit that Description? Well, around 50,000 SaaS businesses around the world. That's plenty. And Dan is the market king when it comes to this type of training. So there's another real life example for you. Get as specific as possible. Specialize. Make sure you give a very resounding reason why your customers would go to you. What do you do better than everybody else? And that's why they stay customers. That's why they continue to pay you month after month, year after year. Let me tell you about Intuit QuickBooks. When I was starting out my business, I remember sitting at my desk late at night, not working on my business, but cleaning up numbers, tracking and reconciling payments and wondering how this became my life. But once I automated the admin side of things, of my finances, those nights had disappeared and I felt a whole lot better. Outdo it with intuit QuickBooks QuickBooks is the trusted end to end solution that businesses rely on for getting paid, managing finances, paying employees, finding new customers, and more. 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One of the easiest ways to find out where you should specialize, where you should double down on in your business so you can in this competitive market, is to ask your customer do some customer interviews. We talked about that in an earlier episode. Run a survey, find out what they love most about your product, your service, and then double down on it and get very, very specialized in that area. It might be something like customer service, like Zappos. Zappos was known for its incredible customer service and that's why they'd buy shoes from Zappos and not from other stores. Sure, I can buy a pair of Nikes from Nike.com, or I can go to Zappos and get incredible customer service and not have to worry about returns or any of that kind of stuff going wrong. Not that I would at Nike, but because Zappos reputation for customer service is so, so prominent, people will flock to it knowing it's great. What's your superpower? What's your specialty? Focus on that. Emphasize that in your marketing and in your offering. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you love what you hear, drop us an itunes rating and review. And don't forget, you can drop us question. Just email me over@omar100mba.net Tomorrow is Wednesday, which is Q and A Wednesday here on the show. This is where we answer your questions right here on the show. So if you have a question Again, email me omar mba.net before I go on, I'll leave you with this. One of the things I learned the hard way is when you talk to everyone, you talk to no one. It's better for you to be specialized and polarizing and really resonate with a group of people than not resonate with anyone at all. Thanks for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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