Entrepreneur.com:
1. Delight your customer. As the old saying goes, ‘The best defense is a good offense.’ If you continue to delight your customer, it’s unlikely that your competition will get to you. There are two reasons this is true: First, you’ll be successful at driving your competition crazy and not vice versa. Second, you’ll be so busy that you won’t have time to worry about the mundanity (’mundane’ plus ‘insanity’) of what your competition is trying to do to you.
2. Don’t assume that perfect information exists. It was bad enough before Google Alerts and other news gathering services, but companies have begun to assume a world of perfect information as a result of such technology. They think the minute the competition announces a new feature, service or partnership, the entire marketplace is aware of it - and buys it. In reality, only you, your competition and Google know what was announced. By overreacting, you may inadvertently increase awareness and exacerbate the problem.
3. Take a chill pill. Never let your competition see you sweat. You shouldn’t lash out and inflame hostilities, because you will probably end up doing something stupid. There’s a Sinbad episode where his sailors throw stones at monkeys in coconut trees to provoke the monkeys into throwing coconuts back at them. Of course, that’s exactly what the hungry and thirsty sailors wanted the monkeys to do.
This doesn’t mean you should ignore your competition. You should find out as much as you can about them. If your competition beats you to the punch, you should take it personally. Just don’t let your competition see you sweat, because they will gain strength and confidence from your nervousness. Instead, furiously out-innovate and out-implement them.
There’s one more case when you should take a chill pill: when your competition has beaten you to the punch and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. In this case, as my mother often told me, ‘Don’t worry about things you can’t change. Focus on things you can.’
4. Hang a negative on your competition… read on.
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[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptAre Competitors Trying To Rile You Up? Sanity Is The Best Policy! December 14th, 2007 Entrepreneur.com: 1. Delight your customer. As the old saying goes, ‘The best defense is a good offense.’ If you continue to delight your customer, it’s unlikely that your competition will get to you. There are two reasons this is true: First, you’ll be successful at driving your competition crazy and not vice versa. Second, you’ll be so busy that you won’t have time to worry about the mundanity (’mundane […]