Too much competitive focus turns us into a permanent follower. That's the kiss of death for growth.
Why?
Our focus on the competition limits our thinking. We end up following their tails instead of breaking out in our own path.
We obsess over matching and beating the competition. Winning against the competition replaces servicing our customers as our business goal and we begin a long and painful tailspin away from the source of our growth our buyers.
We fail and come up pointing to the competition. Their new whatchamafloppy, discount structure or new marketing campaign was insurmountable. We must have a similar, only better whatchmafloppy, pricing or campaign to win against them.
We abdicate responsibility for our own success, and empower the competition to define our precious future.
Nothing we do that follows our competitors will make us market leaders.
As my grandpa used to say, "The view never changes unless you're the lead cow." Yet that's exactly what happens when we get obsessed with the competition. We end up with the same view of our business, our products, our value and our futures...all based on how we stack up against our competitors.
Market leadership is not about being just like everyone else in our markets. Leadership means providing special value in ways that knock our customers socks off. That means we follow our customers' lead and put the competition in our rear view mirror.
Beating the competition is not the way to win the game.