| Does Your Business Have This Virus? | | Date Created: May 03, 2004, 02:23 PM |
 I often ask companies a question. The answer to it let's me know if they have a virus that will shortly bring serious harm to their profits.
It's a simple question...
I ask CEO's, Presidents, and VP's who thier comptetitors are. If they reply, "We don't have any comppetitors!"
I respond...
"Uh huh." And I know they are infected.
Usually that response comes from one of two places:
1) Ignorance
2) Arrogance
Both mental states are dangerous to the future of your business.
In the case of Ignorance, you may not be aware that at the very least your competing with other potential purchases and solutions a business or consumer may need to pursue. And at worse, you are not clear on potential substitutes and cross industry threats to your product or service.
With Arrogance, I'm usually talking to a business at the top of it's game. I'll do a strategic planning session and bring in a group of EVP's and VP's of sales and marketing. When I ask about competitors, they'll answer in unison that they don't have any - that the closest competitors are losers and there is nothing to fear.
What needs to be feared by the CEO is this type of thinking!
Andy Grove said, "Only the paranoid survive." At the very least, "Only the very nervous survive".
If you are in business, you should be nervous about competition. It's good for you. It keeps you close the customer. It keeps you innovating. It keeps your competitive senses sharp.
If the "we don't have any competitors" bug has infected your business, may I suggest you stamp it out before those competitors you don't have stamp your business out. |
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