Watch This Episode of MwahTV About Common Branding Mistakes. Not Knowing Your Competition
In this episode of Mwah TV, we’re going to explore another of the most common branding mistakes. Not knowing your competition! This one often triggers the imposter ick’s today we’re going to push through those feelings together.
Ready?
Where Are You On This Scale?
You probably fit somewhere on this scale of reasoning when it comes to thinking about who your competition is:
On this side let’s call this the avoid end side.
Where you say things like “I don’t care about my competition” or “I don’t have any competition”.
To this end of the scale let’s call this obsessed.
Where you say things like “She just changed her font from this to that – what could this mean?” or “There are 10 a penny of people like me. Why has is gotta be so hard!?”
Let’s be honest, neither of these ends of the spectrum really feel all that appealing. Do they?
By the end of this episode, I’m going to have you thinking about your competition in a motivating way that actually improves your business and brand to the point where you feel all charged up to take inspired action and get out of a comparisonitis funk.
Why Is Making This Mistake So Common?
This brand mistake is incredibly common. Business owners like to dodge and avoid thinking about their competition because it makes them feel:
- Like Imposters in their market
- Less than in comparison to what everyone else is doing
- Scared about facing up to any flaws they know they are avoiding about themselves as a business
However, let me take this opportunity to pinky swear to you when I say that every single competitor audit I have ever done for or with my clients actually ends up feeling:
- Proud of themselves
- Full of new ideas about how to be even better (usually for little effort)
- Confident about how they want to progress in their marketplace
See how opposite those feelings are.
Crazy right?
Crazy and TRUE!
Be Honest
If you feel brave, be honest with me in the comments about how contemplating taking a strategic look at your competitors really makes you feel. I’d love to know if today’s episode challenges this or even changes your mind.
What happens when you ignore Your Competition?
If you continue to ignore what your competition is doing you will probably continue to feel:
- Like Imposters in their market
- Less than in comparison to what everyone else is doing
- Scared about facing up to any flaws they know they are avoiding about themselves as a business
But Also
However much worse than this, it can also:
- Allow you to antiquate yourself. When you avoid how others are adapting to new technology, demands or systems to keep their business up with the times, you’re missing out on using these tactics in your own business. This can make you look like the slow runner in the race. I was always this kid in PE by the way. Running in last, wheezing. Not a good look in a polyester gym skirt. Not a good look as a business.
- Diminish your real value. You could have invertedly positioned yourself at the cheap end of the market. Your prices match the new inexperienced graduate level of the market. If you actually have more experience, talent and skill in comparison to the top end of the market you’re disrespecting yourself by playing in the bargain basement zone. You should be leading the pack and earning a heck of a lot more profit.
- Make you feel a bit rudderless. That is the worst when it comes to motivating yourself. You can’t really say where you’re heading for in the next 3 years’ time if you can’t really honestly say where you are right now can you?
Create a soap opera of competitor drama in your mind. You could have been comparing yourself to a competitor that belongs in a very different place in your market. This is so common. I have worked with a lot of business owners who have been harbouring intense feelings about another brand who does something similar to what they do. Then when we do the work we learn that this business that has consumed so much energy and resentment is actually doing something quite different for a different customer. The feeling of letting this go can feel like a huge weight off the shoulders.
How to overcome one of the most Common Branding Mistakes. Not Knowing Your Competition
The very best way to overcome one of the most common branding mistakes. Not knowing your competition is to conduct an in-depth competitive audit of your marketplace.
This is a project where you take an impartial look at every brand that operates in your wider marketplace. Looking at things this way gives you magical insights about:
- Who is at the cheap end?
- Who is dominating? How they are doing this.
- What the sheeplike behaviours of these brands are right now
And when you have gathered up this information you put yourself in a knowledgeable position to begin getting strategic about:
- How you behave as a brand.
- The way you stack up to the cheapos and the dominators?
- How to differentiate from any sheeplike behaviours you have observed.
- Where there might be any unoccupied gaps in the market that you could position yourself to accumulate.
This knowledge is always so empowering. I recommend any business does this in-depth when they are planning a big change in their business and then that they keep maintaining this information with a maintenance annual review.
Fancy A Chat & Cocktail Together?
If you'd like to have a chat with me on this when it comes to your business, then why not book yourself in for a FREE no-obligation Cyber Cocktail?
It's B.Y.O. and I do my very best to agree on 3 clear and manageable actions to take forward on your own or with more of my help.
To find out how it works and pick out your time, click here.
What are the benefits of Knowing Your Competition In your business?
As well as feeling the bliss of additional knowledge the benefits of knowing your competitors better
- Informs your marketing planning. Having this framework of what everyone else is up to gives you that much-needed objectivity to rigour test your plans and ideas. In a lot of cases, this can save you enormous amounts of wasted time on projects that copy what everyone else is doing.
- Gives you the objective look of the play or theatrical production of your marketplace. I talk about this back in episode X of series X. When you can see more objectively how everyone else is playing out the personality of their brands in your marketplace you can spot the roles missing. For example, if you are a female coaching business and all the other players in your marketplace play have assumed the role of ultra-girly ex-damsel in distress turned #girlboss it’s easy to see that by dialling up your colour palette from the banal and let’s face it passe pastels and tweaking your narrative to rebellious broad who cuts the BS. Your personality is going to stick out in a big way. That will attract all of the coaching clients who were reluctantly tolerating the saccharine girly branding of what was on offer to them before you because they will feel a kinship to your non-BS ways and approach.
As I said, every competitive audit I have ever been involved in has given my clients an incredible confidence boost. This pays off in so many ways especially when you are working on your own or in a very small team. Maybe your competitive audit is going to give you a few good reasons to celebrate just how incredible your business is. Seeing how much better you are might give you that confidence boost to put up your prices or start getting rid of the less than ideal clients you have been clinging onto for fear that your leads are drying up.
Timestamps for this Episode of #MwahTV
00:00 - Episode Starts
00:29 - Bloopers
00:50 - The Scale of Reasoning your Competition
01:55 - Why is this such a common Branding Mistake?
02:55 - My invite for you to share your competitive feelings in the comments
03:27 - What happens when you ignore your competition?
08:10 - How to overcome not knowing your competition
09:38 - How often this should be reviewed
10:11 - My invitation to you to book a Cyber Cocktail Appointment
10:45 - What are the benefits of knowing more about your competition?
12:20 - A pretend example of a Female Business Coach
14:28 - How all of this will affect your confidence
What Happens When You Skip The Strategy?
Skipping the strategic part of creating your brand is another common mistake. Find out more about this by replaying this episode.
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