“We need to differentiate….”
“This is a great idea, we can really generate new growth from this”
“Who else is doing this?”
“Why isn’t anyone else doing it?”
“Hmmm, seems to risky since no one else is doing it”
I hear this far too often. It’s the classic of wanting to be different, but deep down companies are “me too” and don’t want to take a risk without seeing someone else do it or even worse, it’s the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mantra.
Market intelligence is important, for sure. However, there are times when you just need to focus on your inner core and use your knowledge of your own customers to see what new ideas that come your way would be worth taking a risk on.
Having consulted a few clients in this manner, we were able to turn off the noise about what the competition was or was not doing and put a laser focus on what we wanted to do.
The result?
Creativity blossomed, the core project team worked even harder together, and most importantly, we were quick to launch tests and tweak as we went until we got it right.
Time to make decisions was shortened and we didn’t need to over analyze.
What happens when you are in the “Me Too” mantra, is that you are spending a lot of time looking at what the others did and trying to figure out how successful it was so that you can replicate the formula or tweak it to make it your own.
While there is value in this and market intelligence is very important, you inadvertently put yourself in a reactive box that only mimics what’s out there.
Why is this a negative?
Well, since what you put out there is what others are doing, you are not creating a new value proposition to your customers and prospective customers. You are now back in the commodity/price war which as you know, is a race to the bottom.
Versus, if you just focused on yourself, you would have created a new value that takes you out of the commodity/price war, even if it is short lived, you at least did it for awhile with no one else in the sandbox.
When a new idea comes your way, think about what it means to you first, then you can worry about the competition when the time is right.
Do Your Own Thing!
