Love Your Competitors

Competitive wisdom from the new book, Trump University Marketing 101

Treasure your competitors. Accept the fact that you need them. They keep you tough.

Your competitors really are good for you, provided that you deal with them strategically and wisely. If you answer these four questions carefully about your competitors, you will become vastly more competitive and successful in the marketplace:

1. Who are your competitors? Sometimes it is obvious who your competitors are. For example, you run a landscaping service and there are other landscapers in your area. But far more often, it takes work to tell who your competitors are, or who they might be in the future. Bear in mind, a competitor is simply any organization that can satisfy the needs of your customers, either now or in the future. One simple way to identify your competition is to talk to your customers about who is marketing to them and to pay attention to the marketing messages that are being directed at you.

2. What do they want? Different competitors have different business objectives. One might be looking for short-term profits, another trying to build long-term market share. Watch your competition carefully. Read about them in the media, visit their Websites, review their annual reports, and do everything you can so they don't catch you sleeping.

3. What can they do? You need to decode your competitors' strengths and weaknesses and use them to plan preemptive marketing strategies. If you own a restaurant, for example, does a competitor have a great chef, a source of low-cost food or another competitive advantage? If so, you probably need to do something that hey are not doing to gain a competitive edge, such as adding health-conscious entrees or becoming more kid-friendly. But you can only make those strategic decisions when you know what the "other guy" is doing.

4. What will they do? You need to be able to predict, with some certainty, what your competitors will do in the future. In most cases, that means analyzing what they have done in the past and generating a number of possible scenarios for what they might do next - then deciding which of them are most likely to occur. If you are a realtor with another competitor across town, for example, might that competitor steal some of your agents or start selling more upscale properties? Try to put yourself in their shoes and determine what you would do if you were in their position.

As you answer these questions, don't forget the power of personal observation. Go to your competitor's locations. Buy their products or services. Ask your customers to tell you how well your competitors are meeting their needs. If you can understand what your competitors are likely to do, you have gained critical competitive intelligence. So hard as it may seem, you really should love your enemies.