If we really believe that about the offerings our business sells, a few miserable years likely lie ahead.
Buyers have short attention spans and, as Barry Schwartz has written and talks about, they have so much choice today – and a barrage of messages to raise their attention to tens of thousands of choices a year – that choosing is an overwhelming task.
When we look at our product relative to “the competition”, and in light of the needs that we judge permeate the market, we are looking at our baby, comfortably and adorably lying in her crib. Our standard of judgment is unconsciously, though necessarily, biased in her favor, and our judgments of other babies always tilted in her direction. Our competitors – that ones we know, and the ones we fail to acknowledge – have their babies too.
It is highly unusual (if not impossible) for a buyer to view our products – and those of direct competitors – with the same preoccupation, scrutiny and comparative standards as we do. There are too many decisions to make, and to many choices to evaluate.
Our competition is not merely those competitors with offerings similar to our own. Our competition in the large is every business, product and service that vies for the attention of the buyer. That seeks to raise awareness of a need, impulse or desire higher on the ladder than all others. That seeks to make its star shine brighter than similar stars.
There are over 28 million registered businesses in the US, each seeking a slice of over $16 Trillion in annual GDP, whether those dollars are spent on healthcare, a new car, a Playstation 4 or on a municipal bond. If ours is the business of selling ERP software, then like it or not, we are competing with over 28 million.
In the small (the way we customarily think of competition) we compete with far fewer. We compete primarily on three levels: to gain the attention of buyers; to convince buyers that satisfying the need that our product fulfills is paramount; that we provide superior value compared to all others.
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