They’re analyzing your business model, secret shopping your sales team, looking for weaknesses.
How will they beat you? By moving faster. Shipping quicker. Understanding your customers better.
They’re launch new ideas from scratch without the burden of your “legacy” code or infrastructure or bureaucracy.
They’ll capture the imagination of the press, of bloggers, influencers and early adopters.
You may know who this competitor is. You may also have no idea who they are. In fact, it’s entirely possible your biggest competitor next year doesn’t yet exist.
So how do you compete with that?
Become your competitor. Disintermediate yourself. Question your own assumptions – all of them – and develop the habit of continually questioning how you do business, how well you understand what your customers want and need, and what they want next.
You’ll have to get out of your own shoes to do it. You’ll need to force yourself to ignore much of what you may currently hold as fundamental truths about your business, your market and/or your customers.
Your competitors wouldn’t be a threat if they weren’t thinking about those three things differently.
So beat them to it.
