A short YouTube monologue by Phil Risher warning business owners that hiring digital-marketing consultants who also serve direct competitors can eliminate their competitive advantage. He argues that if multiple local competitors receive identical marketing services, businesses will struggle to stand out and may be wasting money; viewers are urged to ask vendors how many competitors they serve.
The huge area of opportunity for digital marketing is not working with competition. And the reason this is important is because you as a business owner, if your business is working with one consultant or one company to do this type of marketing and they work with your competition right down the street or another company that's 20 miles away, what is your comparative advantage? If they're doing the same thing as you, how are you going to stand out in the marketplace? If you're all doing the same thing, you're just wasting your money. And so it always frustrates me when people say, yeah, I only work with this company because they only work with these types of businesses, which is great. But if they only work with these types of businesses, what is your advantage? What are you standing out amongst your competition? How many of your competitors do they actually work with? If you haven't asked this question, I'll be curious because you might just be wasting money on marketing that everyone is already doing.
The companies that win the next five years won't be the ones gaming the system.
