Chapter 76. Keep Learning—Especially from the Opposition

We’ve all heard the managers who get angry when the competition steals a client from them. Or who rail about how unfair it was that they lost such and such an order. Or when a client leaves, screaming bloody murder that they’ve been set up. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Believe me, if the competition is stealing your ideas, your customers, your contracts, your clients, your sales, your staff and your income, then you have a) no one to blame but yourself and b) been given a great opportunity to learn how to do it better.

Nothing teaches us better than better competitors. What is it they are doing? What can we learn from this? How can we emulate them? How can we take what they are doing and really run with it? How can we grow our market share by outdoing what they are doing?

Spend some time each week checking what the competition is doing, because if they are effective (and competition invariably is) they will be checking out what you are doing. Spend some time getting to know—and sharing with—the competition. Look, if you have five main competitors and you share with them, you are giving each one a part of what you are doing. But the idea spreads and five will give you ideas, information, research, and so on. We should never fear competition. Embrace it. It grows the market. It keeps you on your toes. It gives you a real learning opportunity—real as in it is actually happening and isn’t a training exercise. And it doesn’t involve LEGO^®.

If you fear competition, what you really fear is your own incompetence. If you know you’re doing a good job, the competition can’t touch you. If you’re not doing a good job, the competition can walk all over you—and you know it, just as you know you’re not doing a good job.