Is your competition luring you off-track?

Drew McLellan Written by Drew McLellan
on June 30th, 2008 / 3 Comments / Print this

Have you ever had the experience of driving along, paying attention to something off in the horizon and next thing you know, you’ve driven to that spot? And it wasn’t where you meant to go?

The same phenomenon can happen in your business. Most business owners I met pay a lot of attention to what their competition is doing. We definitely need to keep an eye on the competitive landscape. But there’s a very fine line.

The danger in keeping track of the other guys is that you lose track of your own path. We tend to move towards what we pay attention to. And you don’t want to let your competitors determine your marketing strategy. That’s a quick way to:

  • Deplete your resources
  • Look like you’re playing the “us too” game
  • Lose the momentum of your key messages

You want to be the leader in your industry, not follow someone else. The best way to beat your competition isn’t watching what they do. It’s doing what you should be doing.

If you have and follow a marketing plan — you can enjoy the best of both worlds. The marketing plan keeps you on your course. Heading in the direction you have determined. When you know where you’re headed and keep checking the map to see that you’re on course, you can afford to peek at what the competitors are doing.

Just make sure you’re following your course, not theirs.

About Drew McLellan

Drew McLellan

Drew McLellan gets branding and marketing and he desperately wants you to get it too.

So he tells stories, asks questions, and milks sacred cows. All to help clients discover their brand so they can create authentic love affairs with their customers.

Drew has not only survived 20 years in the advertising and marketing arena, he’s thrived in it. After working for several other agencies, including Young and Rubicam’s CMF&Z, Drew created McLellan Marketing Group in 1995.

Considered a national branding expert, Drew is a highly sought after speaker and has given about a zillion presentations at national conferences, key note addresses, training for his peers in the profession, college students and even his daughter’s eighth grade class.

Over the years, Drew has lent his expertise to clients like Nabisco, IAMS pet foods, Kraft Foods, Meredith Publishing, John Deere, Iowa Health System, Make-A-Wish, University of Central Florida, SkiDoo and a wide array of others.

When he’s not out preaching the good word of marketing & branding at work and on his blog Drew’s Marketing Minute, Drew spends time with his family and pondering why the Dodgers can’t seem to get back to the World Series.

Drew has a Master’s Degree from the University of Minnesota but alas, he cannot remember their fight song.

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3 Comments to “Is your competition luring you off-track?”

  • Noobpreneur
    June 30th, 2008
    8:19 pm

    Drew,

    Good post - I’ve been lured off track too often in my entrepreneurship career :P

    In my experience, they usually do price wars to my business. It’s hard not to responding to their call for war :) However, a cool head makes me re-think my action and, rather than focusing on price war, I better be off to ’schmooze’ my customers with the weapon of mass-destruction in price war - “under promise, over deliver”

    So far, it beats price war. And you right, I suppose to do what I should be doing.

    Cheers!

  • Wendy
    July 2nd, 2008
    1:28 am

    Terrific message Drew! I expend a lot of energy with my clients getting them to see the difference between knowing what their competition is doing and needing to be like them.

    Price wars as mentioned in the previous comment are a really good example. Avoiding competing on price and making the effort to demonstrate the value to bring for the price is so important.

    Thanks for reminding everybody that a good marketing plan can make all the difference. Too many entrepreneurs have a knee-jerk reaction to their marketing (buying the last thing that walked in the door).

  • Paul Smister
    July 5th, 2008
    5:17 pm

    Thanks for linking to the posting on my business coaching blog.

    You can’t ignore competitors but customer focused entrepreneurs do exactly that they focus on the customer - their wants, needs, frustrations, problems - and find new ways to add value and stand out from the competitors.

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