Once you outperform your competitors in terms of the way that you do things, the way that you make your presentations, the way that you interact with your clients, the way that you follow up and service them — when you’re already outperforming your other competitors in that area, then the only thing you can really do is focus on how can I outperform my previous performance?
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David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Bianca Istvan and I will be discussing the topic of outperforming your top competitor. Welcome back, Bianca.
Bianca: Thanks so much, David. So happy to be here with you. And what are we talking about? And what does that mean to outperform your top competitor?
David: Yeah, great question. For a lot of people, we kind of feel like we need to do it. We want to do it, but we’re not quite sure how or what or even who they are. So, what it means to me is that we are doing a better job at the things that need to be done to be able to deliver a positive result for our clients.
So outperforming a top competitor means that we’re doing it better. We’re doing it differently. And we’re able to convey that to people in a way where they understand it. They understand that there’s a difference between the way that we deliver things and the way that other people deliver things.
Bianca: Wow, that’s absolutely fantastic. And, you know, thanks for bringing so much awareness because yeah, it’s a lot of confusion around this topic. And you mentioned something about who our competitor is. So how do you even determine who that is?
David: For a lot of people, when you’re out there in the market and you’re talking to people about buying your products and services, they’ll say, Oh, well, I deal with this person or I deal with that person.
So that’s a good way to find out who your top competitors are. Because if you keep hearing the same names over and over again, that’s a pretty good indication that they’re a top competitor.
Also, very often when we’re starting out in a market, we may be aware of sort of the big dog in the market, the person who is already recognized as a leader.
So, you may just know when you’re going in the person who does the most advertising or who seems to be the best known in the marketplace. That’s also a good way to determine, okay, this might be one of my top competitors.
Ultimately, we need to decide who we see as our top competitors. But that’s really just the starting point. Because I think that people make a big mistake when they focus on outperforming other people as their top competitors versus getting to the point where they ultimately have to outperform themselves, right?
So I think ultimately we want to get to a point where we are our own top competitor that we’re trying to outperform.
Because once you’ve outperformed your other competitors in terms of the way that you do things, the way that you make your presentations, the way that you interact with your clients, the way that you follow up and service them.
When you’re already outperforming your other competitors in that area, then the only thing you can really do is focus on how can I outperform my previous performance?
Bianca: Wow, that’s absolutely a great answer. And I heard there a lot of hows. So how do you really outperform your top competitor?
David: Well, a lot of it has to do with determining what is it that we’re saying to people.
How are we saying it? How often are we saying it? So it really boils down to a lot of our interactions with our clients. How often we’re communicating with them, the very specific things that we’re saying. The way that we’re performing.
Are we able to deliver what they’re looking for in a timely manner? Can we provide better quality products than our competitors? So a lot of it is really looking at the specifics of the job itself that needs to get done, and the way that we do those things.
So, I think when most people think in terms of outperforming their top competitor, they might think in terms of, I want to be able to make more money than they do, or I want to be able to have more clients than they do.
And while that’s true, the how of it is really what’s most important. It comes from the things that you’re going to be doing with them in order to create the better results so that they go to you instead of to your competitor.
Bianca: Wow, that’s such great information. And I think people just listening to this podcast are going to have more awareness of how to deal with this topic because, it’s definitely not an easy one. And I think it’s important to talk about what if you’re not convinced you can do it. And I know you talk a lot about this, so please, tell us something.
David: Well, we touched on mindset in a previous podcast. So some of it does come down to that. If you think that you can’t outperform your competitors, you have to ask yourself, what am I doing then that even makes me deserve the business, right?
To some extent, you have to feel that you can outperform your competitors. You have to feel like you’re offering your customers something that your competitors don’t offer them, because without something like that, it’s going to be very difficult to differentiate you from your competitors.
So if you’re looking at that situation saying, well, what if I don’t feel like I can do it, then look at the specific things you’re doing and ask yourself, what can I do better and differently to be able to make that happen?
So again, it’s kind of a mindset issue, but ultimately it’s going to boil down to performance.
Bianca: That’s why you’re an expert of mindset. And I really hope people are taking notes on this because it’s such valuable information. So I have to take advantage of this moment and to ask you one more question. What’s one of the next, what’s one of the steps to outperform, David?
David: Okay. Well, when you think in terms of your first step, your next step, I would start by looking at what is your initial contact with the prospects and clients you’re dealing with?
Am I meeting them at a networking function? Am I calling them on the phone? Am I sending them a message through social media? Because that’s going to set the tone for the relationship.
So if you want to start out by outperforming your competitors, ask yourself, how are they experiencing me to begin with? Because if I pick up the phone and I call you and I say, Hey, Bianca, I’m Dave, I sell stuff, you want to buy something?
That’s going to have a completely different experience, going to create a completely different event in your mind in terms of what that relationship is likely to be.
Whereas if I can create value in our communication, which is actually something we’ll talk about in a future podcast, that’s going to go a long way to outperform your competition.
Because so many of our competitors are just focused on making the sale that when you differentiate yourself by creating value, establishing those relationships, and just doing everything that needs to be done better and differently, then it becomes a lot easier to outperform.
Bianca: Wow, thanks so much for sharing this with us because this is absolutely a gold mine. So thank you. And I have one more question for you before I let you go. What is the best way for people to reach out to us?
David: Best way to do it is to go to TopSecrets. com slash call, schedule a call to find out, okay, if you’re in a situation where you need to perform better, you need to maybe get business that you’re not getting because someone else in your market is getting it.
Let’s have a conversation. We can walk you through a process to find out where the potential bottlenecks are and how we can help. If we can help you, we’ll let you know that. If we can’t help, we’ll let you know that too. So just go to TopSecrets. com slash call. We’d love to have that conversation.
Bianca: Thank you so much, David.
David: Thank you, Bianca.
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