Business owners waste hours every week checking competitors’ websites, stalking their social profiles, and panicking when someone launches something new. This constant comparison leads to reactive decisions, copycat strategies, and that crushing feeling you’re always one step behind.
An obsession with competition keeps you playing small, focused on incremental improvements rather than creating something genuinely groundbreaking that could change everything.
This principle transformed my agency before I sold it in 2021. I didn’t fixate on local Birmingham or even UK agencies. I set my sights on global players, creating a business that stood out because it wasn’t copying what already existed.
Competition-watching limits your potential: here’s what to do instead
Most entrepreneurs track competitors because it feels productive. But the real opportunity lives beyond what already exists. Here’s how to win without looking at the competition.
Create your blue ocean
Competition-saturated markets are red oceans. Bloody with rivalry where businesses fight over the same customers with similar offerings. Winners sail to blue oceans instead, creating uncontested market space where competition becomes irrelevant.
This happens by building something genuinely different, not by obsessing over what others are doing. Your focus stays on solving problems that matter, not outmaneuvering competitors who ultimately don’t determine your success.
Think bigger than everyone else. Ask your customers deeper questions. Look for a new angle to your marketing, a new solution to an old problem. The answers are everywhere.
Play to your unique strengths
Your distinctive combination of skills, experiences, and perspectives forms your ultimate competitive advantage. No one else has exactly what you have. When clients occasionally tell me they’re going with another provider, I simply think: good for you, that was the right choice. Their business serves a different purpose than mine.
You’ll win more by doubling down on what makes you different than by trying to beat others at their own game. Your ace cards are waiting to be played.
Own your space. Become a master of your field. Get to expert status. When you get really good at doing what only you can do, your clients have no other option.
Set standards beyond your industry
If everyone is using the same industry benchmarks, there’s a problem. Comparison becomes king. And that’s a trap. For you, the competition, and your customers, it becomes a race to the bottom. A game of one-upping the other.
This practice benefits no one. Find metrics that matter beyond the typical standards to go further than anyone else.
Measure against your own potential, not theirs. Success means building something extraordinary on your own terms. Create your own definition of excellence that has nothing to do with what others are doing.
Draw inspiration from unexpected places
Instead of fixating on direct competitors, look to adjacent industries or completely different fields. Try other business models on for size. Think about how you’d apply your service in a different category. Go broader with your vision.
If you’re running an agency, study what software companies, manufacturing businesses, and luxury brands are doing, for innovative ideas.
Create service models that stand apart from your industry’s standard offerings instead of doing what everyone else is doing. Connect the dots others haven’t seen. There are clues in every conversation.
Run your own race
I never want to win because someone else failed. True victory comes from being better, period. In powerlifting competitions, I want everyone to have their best day ever and still beat them fair and square.
The only competition that matters is between who you are today and who you were yesterday. Are you improving? Track your own metrics, celebrate your own wins, and focus on your own growth.
When you’re tempted to check what competitors are doing, ask: Will this information help me build something better, or am I just comparing myself? Your journey isn’t meant to look like anyone else’s. Stay committed to your vision without the distraction of constant comparison.
Stay focused on your own masterpiece
Forget about playing defense against competitors and focus on innovation that makes you unmistakable in your market. Create your blue ocean, leverage your unique strengths, set standards beyond your industry, find inspiration in unexpected places, and run your own race confidently. The competition might be watching you, but you’ll be too busy winning to care.
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