What can we learn from our competitors?

What can we learn from our competitors?

The answer is quite a lot.

Your competitor is not your enemy. He’s an educational opportunity just waiting to broaden your horizons.

Chances are great that your competitors do all kinds of things you can learn from. If your competitor frequently hires staff out from under you, for example, find out why. What benefits do they offer that you don’t? Ditto for the people that you’ve tried to hire away from them. Ask why they chose to stay, even if you offered them more.

Ask yourself:

• What does your competition do they do better than you? And how do they get it right?
• How and where do they market their services?
• What are the best decisions your competitor or your predecessor made recently?
• What do they do or make that you could produce better?

It’s always a good idea to pay attention to your competition in an open minded way. It’s easy to get in a rut with insider thinking. Looking at the way your competition does things can unlock new ways of thinking and open doors to biases you didn’t even know you had.