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Whether you’re an entrepreneur or aspiring athlete, you will benefit from studying your competition.

Don’t believe me? Let me show you two examples.

For the first, lets take a look at one of the worlds best basketball players.

Kobe Bryant studies videos of his opponents on a portable 10″ DVD player. He combs through each video to find advantages which could help him guard his opposition in basketball games. Oh, and did I mention that he does this before every game?

The second example is about the world’s most impressive retail tycoon.

Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, would regularly visit his competitor’s stores. He started doing this as a aspiring business man and continued to do it when his stores were in first place. He believed in learning from everything and he thought his competitors could teach him the most.

But now you must be wondering, “How Can I Learn From My Competition?” In the remaining part of this article I will go over the best ways to study your competition for maximum growth potential. So, lets get started.

Who Are Your Competitors?

You need to find your competition to learn from them. It could be a teammate, a rival business, or it could be yourself, but the bottom line is that there is someone or something out there that you need to compete with. But how do you find them? Who is considered competition and why?

People and businesses compete for limited resources. We compete for sales, customer’s time, or that one promotion, or that one corner office. In short, your competition is anyone who prevents you from getting more of what you want.

You can easily define your competition by looking at your goals. If you want that promotion, your competition is anyone who may receive that promotion over you. If you create video games, your competition is all video game companies or more broadly, any company that demands a person’s “extra” time.

But what if you can’t find your competitors?

You need to define your business and goals on a broad landscape. It will help you spot potential attackers and growth opportunities. For example, if you specialize in 7″ screws, you would not want to compete in the 7″ screw market. You would want to compete in the “we help you build or hang things on the wall” market. If you specialize in iPhone games, you need to compete with “we help you waste time on your phone at work” market.

Okay, but how many competitors should you track?

The magic number is all of them. Unfortunately, who has the time for that? So, if you are a small business or corporate executive, I would focus on 3 competitors. If you don’t have 3, redefine your business and goals so you have 3. If you have more than 3, redefine your business and goals so you have 3.

You may think 3 is too much or 3 is too little, but it is a very manageable number for a single person. On average, you should spend at least 3 hours per competitor per month and 9 hours isn’t too demanding for one person. If you have the resources and time, you should expand your competitor tracking, but if you don’t, 3 is a great start.

What Are Your Competitors Doing?

Here is where we take some insight from people like Sam Walton and Kobe Bryant. You need to find out what your competitors are doing and why. If you can’t find out why, make sure you know what they are doing so you can use it to improve your business.

When the Holidays started coming around I noticed my local Barnes and Nobles did a few changes. I’m not competing with them, but what they did was interesting. They created a huge table of board games and placed it near the customer service desk. Additionally, they moved their “clearance” items from the back-end of the store to near the customer service desk. I found myself asking, “Why did they do it?”

Well, when the holidays come around many people spend impulsively. A parent comes into a book store to buy their daughter the new Harry Potter book and asks customer service where to find it. While waiting for help, she spots 50% off signs and “great games for children.” Now she leaves with the hottest new game Blokus, some cheap 50% index learning cards, and the latest Harry Potter book.

So, make sure you make note of what your competitors are doing. There is a reason for it and it may help you improve your business.

But how do you do it? How do you find out what your competitors are up to?

Are you ready for the answer? it is going to be very complicated. Get dressed, leave your house, and go look at what they are doing. Look at the products they are selling, Look at their light fixtures, look at their signage, look at their event promotions. Just use your eyes and you will find out what they are up to.

What Are People Saying About Your Competitors?

Why does it matter what people are saying about your competitors? Are there opportunities hiding in conversation?

If you’re reading a blog, I doubt I have to tell you this, but yes there is. There are tons of opportunities.

When you look at what people are saying about your competition, you can find one of two things: 1) a thread of discontent or 2) a success story. Lets talk about both of them.

• A Success Story: When you look at what your competitors are doing, you need to use your judgment to decide whether or not it is positive or negative. When you have a testimonial, you have proof. If you see on Yelp that the local diner received a ton of praise for their simple 15 item menu, you may think about cutting 50 items off of your 100 item menu.

• A Thread of Discontent: If you see people complaining about the pizza place’s customer service, you can position yourself as “the pizza place with the best customer service.” If you see people complaining about a lack of information on a competitors blog, you can provide a ton of information on your blog.

But how can you discover what people are saying about your competitors?

• Ask them: Many people love to give their opinion. So, you might as well use it to your advantage.
• Twitter: By now I’m sure you’re familiar with how much Twitter has grown. You should use Twitter Search to scope out your competitors and market regularly.
• Yelp: If you are a small business, you know about Yelp. You probably dealt with some bad reviews before or good reviews, but you should look at your competition’s bad reviews as well.
• Google Blog Search: Blogging is the source of conversation. You can search brand names, peoples names, or anything you want and you will find someone talking about it. Don’t let this free information go to waste. So, use Google Blog Search.

What Are The Experts Saying About Your Competitors?

If you regularly read Prevential.com, you know how cynical I am about proclaimed “experts.” However, they do have a ton of insight into your competition and your market. So, you should read what the experts are saying.

To start, you want to follow your industry news. You want to see what the independent trade journals and dedicated media outlets are saying. If they’re talking about some new great Point of Sale system or Content Management System, you should probably check it out. If they are talking about a new innovative product, you may want to consider adding something similar.

Why You Should Talk to Your Competitors

Many businessmen and executives hate their competition. They view them as villains who are trying to rob their bank accounts. However, this kind of hostility is not beneficial and will hurt your business.

When you view your competitor as a villain, you assume you are the savior. You think everything you do is right and everything they do is wrong. This kind of mindset will prevent you from doing the right things at the right time. You may not be able to keep an open mind when you see them doing something different because you will assume it is wrong.

Instead, you should talk with your competition regularly. They can be a huge help.

You don’t have to give away your secrets, but you should share certain best practices. This type of stuff will promote good will and respectable competition. You wouldn’t want a hostile competitor throwing a rock through your window or hacking your website right?

Additionally, if small businesses or executives communicate, they may fair much better against larger competitors with thousands of employees. I remember when I started an entertainment blog, the way I grew it was by talking with other entertainment blogs of similar size. We worked together and we eventually caught up to the huge entertainment blogs.

The Bottom Line

So you know what people are saying, you know what your competitors are doing, and you talk to your competitors regularly, but what do you do to differentiate? How can you make sure you and your company beats your competition?

Want to know How To Differentiate From  Your Competition?

Related posts:

1. Four Ways to Take Advantage of
   Your Competition’s Success
2. Five Timeless Lessons From Warren Buffett
3. Gary Vaynerchuk Case Study:
   The Mom and Pop Advantage

Photo Courtesy of Exfordy

Have you read Chris Brogan’s “You’re Racing – I’m Improving” blog post yet? He admits that he keeps score against a few other blogs, but he emphasizes that his main goal is to improve himself and his business. Unfortunately, if you’re not keeping score, you will miss crucial growth opportunities.

However, you can’t obsess over your competition and their success. You need to keep score for a reason. You need to find out why your competition is becoming successful and look for ways to duplicate that success in your business.

For example, while I absolutely hate the AWEBER pop-up subscription boxes, many people helped their bottom line substantially with this tactic. If they weren’t keeping score, they would have missed this chance.

Additionally, the now deceased billionaire Sam Walton visited variety stores competing with Wal-Mart regularly. He would walk around his competition and find best-practices that he could immediately implement to help his bottom line and I’m sure you know how successful he turned out.

But how can you use the competition to improve your business?

1. Look for Explanations

Did you stumble across one of your competitors that experienced a surge in growth, whereas you didn’t? Well, the absolute worst thing you can become is envious. Instead, you need to learn from their success. You need to find out what caused their growth and try to implement that best-practice in your business.

Oh, and guess what, if you’re a blogger and your competition is a blogger, you don’t need to look for an explanation. You could probably ask and they would tell you.

2. Ride Their Wave

One of the best things about a competitor who experiences a surge in growth is that you can use it to your advantage. You can actually take out your surfboard and ride their wave to the top.

I remember when some major news broke and a blogger I knew ranked #1 in Google for it. They were receiving around 3,000,000 hits per day for a week. Do you know what the best part was? They were still selling Blogads for $45 dollars a week. So, I bought a few and received millions of impressions for practically nothing.

3. Be The Antagonist

Did one of your competitors see a surge in growth because they nailed their colors to the flag pole? Well, you should nail a different color to the flagpole and claim yours is better. Even if you don’t build a huge following, you will find some supporters to support you simply because you’re the antagonist.

4. Build Off Their Success

If one of your competitors launched a successful new product, you should launch a peripheral product that builds off their success. While your sales may be limited to their niche, it is a great way to get exposure

Want a perfect example of this? Think about iPhone peripherals. There are tons of people making a ton of money off of iPhone apps, iPhone cases, iPhone headphones, and the like. These companies use a successful product to launch their products and it works.

The Bottom Line

Time spent in admiration is time wasted. So, if you’re going to look at your competitors success, make sure you’re doing it for a specific reason that will help your business. Make sure you’re looking for specific action plans that you can immediately implement today so you don’t miss any opportunities.

Related posts:

1. How to Learn From Your Competition
2. When Companies Stop Growing, What Do They Do?
3. How to Improve Your Business
   With The Kaizen System