Home : The Art of Driving Your Competition Crazy

The Art of Driving Your Competition Crazy

Posted by Guy Kawasaki on 1/24/2007 at 9:48 PM
Posted in Entrepreneurship, Marketing

“The purpose of competition is not to beat someone down, but to bring out the best in every player.” - Walter Wheeler

One of the signs of a boom - or at least a boomlet - is that companies start wanting to drive their competition crazy. This occurs when “survival” is no longer an issue and optimization or maximization can become a corporate goal. However, the desire to do things to the competition can lead a company astray - or drive it to even greater heights.

Companies go astray when defeating the competition becomes more important than taking care of customers. When companies become obsessed with the pursuit of excellence, by contrast, they often reach new levels of greatness. Here’s how to avoid the former and achieve the latter.

1. Know thyself. Before you can drive your competition crazy, you have to understand what your company stands for. Otherwise, you’ll only succeed in driving yourself crazy. For example, Apple stands for cool technology. It will never represent a CIO’s safe bet, an “enterprise software company,” or service and support. If it decided it wanted to drive Microsoft crazy by sucking up to CIOs, it would drive itself crazy - that is, if it didn’t perish trying.

2. Know thy customer. The second step is to truly understand what your customer wants from you - and, for that matter, what it doesn’t want from you. One thing that your customer seldom wants to do is to help you drive your competition crazy. That’s in your head, not your customer’s. One more thing: a good company listens to what a customer says it wants. A great company anticipates what a customer needs - even before she knows she wants it.

3. Know thy enemy. The third step is to truly understand your competition. You cannot drive your competition crazy unless you understand their strengths and weaknesses. You should become your competition’s customer by buying their products and services. I never truly understood what it was like to be a customer of Microsoft until I bought a Sony Vaio and used Windows. Sure, I had read many comparisons and competitive analyses, but they were nothing compared to hands-on usage.

4. Focus on the customer. Here’s what most people find surprising: the best way to drive your competition crazy is not to do anything to it. Rather, the best way is for you to succeed because your success, more than any action, will drive your competition crazy. And the way you become successful is not by figuring out what you can do to the competition, but for the customer.

You succeed at doing things for the customer by using the knowledge that you’ve gained in the first three steps: understanding what you do, what your customer wants and needs, and what your competition doesn’t do. At the intersection of these three factors lies the holy grail of driving your competition crazy. For most companies, the key to driving the competition crazy is out-innovating, out-servicing, or out-pricing it.

5. Turn customers into evangelists. There are few things that drive a competitor more crazy than an unpaid, thunderlizard group of customers who become evangelists for a company. I covered this topic in detail in The Art of Evangelism, but the gist is this: create a great product or service, put it out there (“let a hundred flowers blossom”), see who falls in love with it, open up your arms to them (they will come running to you), and then take care of them. It’s that simple.

6. Make good by doing good. Doing good has its own, very sufficient rewards, but sometimes you can make good and do good at the same time. For example, if you own a chain of hardware stores, you can help rebuild a community after a natural disaster. You’re bound to get a lot of publicity and create bonds with the community - this will drive your competition crazy. And you’ll be doing something good!

7. Turn the competition into allies. One way to get rid of your competition is to drive it out of business. I suppose this might be attractive to you, but a better way is to turn your competition into allies. My favorite author of children’s books is Tomie DePaola. My favorite DePaola book is The Knight and the Dragon. This is the story of a knight and a dragon who train to slay each other. They are smashingly unsuccessful at doing battle and eventually decide to go into business together. Using the dragon’s firebreathing ability and the knight’s salesmanship, they create the K & D Bar-B-Q. For example, if a Home Depot opens up next to your hardware store, let it sell the gas barbecues, and you refill people’s propane tanks.

8. Play with their minds. If you’re doing all this positive, good stuff, then it’s okay to have some fun with your competition - that is, to intentionally play with their minds. Here are some examples to inspire you:

During the Korean War, the U. S. Army Office of Strategic Services left a supply of condoms for the Communist Chinese to find. The condoms were specially manufactured in an extra-large size. The label on the boxes, however, said, “Made in the USA Size Medium.”
Hannibal once had his soldiers tie bundles of brush to the horns of cattle. At night, his soldiers lit the brushwood on fire, and Hannibal’s Roman enemies thought that thousands of soldiers were marching towards them.
A pizza company that was entering the Denver market for the first time ran a promotion offering two pizzas for the price of one if customers brought in the torn-out yellow pages ad of its competition.
A national hardware store chain opened up right next to a longtime community hardware store. After a period of depression and panic, the storeowner came up with a very clever ploy. He put up a sign on the front of his store that said, “Main Entrance.”

On his own blog today, Guy Kawasaki will publish an interview with none other than our Chairman, Donald J. Trump. Don’t miss it!

For still more insights on making your company a sucess, become a part of Trump University's Entrepreneurship Mastery Program. Classes are forming now.

Guy Kawasaki is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Forbes.com. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. where he was one of the individuals responsible for the success of the Macintosh computer. Guy is the author of eight books including The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

Please log in or join to comment.

12 Comments

Posted by member1366890 on 01/25/2007 8:40 AM

WARP 10 Kawasaki mind!

Ina Matijevic

Posted by Larry Gessner on 01/25/2007 10:10 AM

Guy, you have given everyone a vital piece of information in this post. People are always told to know who your competition is but, no one tells it like you do. I was able to hear a first hand account of how a grocery store owner smiled when his competition opened downed the street. When asked why he was smiling, he comented " Because now my business will double" He knew that he provided a better service to his customers and that his competition could not reach that level without spending twice as much. Within two months of opening the new store. The word on the street was that the service was poor and everyone went back to the first store. The second store closed down within two years. The first store owner did nothing except tell his emplyees that they needed to be extra nice to the customers. The employees felt that if the other store did better, they might be out of a job. So they worked twice as hard and it paid off. The thought of embracing your competition is a tough sell but, it is one of the best business decisions that you can make. It will drive the other guy crazy if he can't figure it out.

Posted by member1488296 on 01/25/2007 10:14 AM

This has been the most helpful blog I have ever read. I have been in business for 21 years, and am dealing with a new competitor that is giving his products away to put me out of busines. IT is driving me NUTS! I am tanning salon owner, this is the busiest months of the year and we have to make all of our business in 4 months out of the year. They are giving a one month unlimited for 9.95 and I am 29.95. He has lines out the door, I don't, But my bottom line is up big time this year and my customers are with me and not there. WHY? I am not sure. I guess price is not all. But I am ticked. Reading this blog has helped me keep my focus. Don't get mad get even. Many business have come and gone in the last 21 years, but I am still here and have been voted best of the best 5 years in a row. So going into this season I will make it a point to learn more from "The Trump BLog"

Posted by member1488332 on 01/25/2007 11:29 AM

This is Awesome. I have been reading both the How To Change The World blog (Guy Kawasaki) and the Trump Blog for some time. Imagine my surprise when I hit Guy's blog this morning and saw the short interview with Donald Trump (I was the 4th to digg that post). When I hit the Trump Blog, there was the bit by Guy. This is totally excellent. If you have not already, read Guy's entire book "How to Drive Your Competition Crazy" (I am about half way through and it is incredible). Then, read the book "Why We Want You To Be Rich" which Donald wrote with Robert K, (he is the Rich Dad, Poor Dad author - read his stuff too!). Great CrossBlog!!. I blog about sales at http://johnonsales.terapad.com/

Posted by member1452082 on 01/25/2007 3:42 PM

Do a great job for your clients and the money will look after itself.

Also, never bad-mouth or put-down your competition. It will look bad on you.

Do not waste energy on getting back at foes who have screwed you because they will eventually get themselves back.

I hate two things:

GREED

LIARS

The rest I can deal with.

What ever goes around comes around. (Both good and Bad)

Be good to everybody!

ROCK ON....................................

Michael J. Mark, P.Eng. BSc EE

www.m2engineering.com

www.workingclassengineer.com

www.bookexpoamerica.com

Posted by Gary A. on 01/27/2007 7:40 AM

Good advice but always remember the following two rules:

Rule # 1. The customer is always right because the customer pays the bills and keeps you in business.

Rule # 2. If there are any questions, refer to Rule # 1.

I have my own rule, which is: Don't bad mouth your competition because what goes around, comes around, and it comes around even harder than when it first went around.

gea

Posted by user89187 on 01/28/2007 9:02 AM

What competition?

Posted by user89187 on 01/28/2007 9:04 AM

ps Did anyone tell you how cute you are? My goodness where does Mr. Trump find all these nice, smart good looking men?

Posted by user89187 on 01/28/2007 9:08 AM

Oh yeah you forgot to mention not to ever give up and or lose your sense of humor, that is if you have one.

Winners never quit and losers never win.

Posted by member1501252 on 01/31/2007 7:01 PM

I have a great time telling my clients some of the good points of my competition. Obviously points that I know they wouldn't be interested in, but at the end of the day, I come out looking so much better. And they think they I must be in a really good position to make positive comments like that. So I get more respect.

~ Be ten steps ahead of your competition

~ Always be positive when talking about your competition. Do not compare your company to another. Just really boast about your good points.

~ Find their weaknesses and then really go for it filling up the space

~ Make your ads always that much bigger and brighter

~ Match their advertising on the web and in papers. journals etc and more!

All the best
Diana Moore
New Zealand
http://www.emotionalfreedom.homestead.com

Posted by member1445505 on 02/19/2007 10:31 AM

I'm not sure why I'm placing this comment here. It's actually mean't for Donald. But it eeemed to be the right location.

Donald,
Concerning your new adventure at Cap Cana SA.
I don't like gated communities. There's something wrong with it.

Jerilynn

Now you do with this what you see fit.

Posted by Rachael Sutton #1253595 on 12/07/2008 2:25 PM

This is excellent.

Please log in or join to comment.

Newer

Older

Home