Render Your Competition Irrelevant
Render Your Competition Irrelevant How position yourself in a way, which overcomes your competition? How to “steal” customers from your long established competitors, even when you are just starting out.
2
Make your competition irrelevant When you are starting out, or expanding your business into another niche, it is always very difficult to compete with others who are already established. Our brain works in a way that it sorts brands into little boxes in our head. So you might a find little box in your head, called “search engines” and in that box you can find all the search engines that you can remember. There is going to be Google, Yahoo, Bing, and maybe a few others. In most cases there is never going to be more than 7 brands in one box (a mental category) in our head. That means that if people already know six or seven search engines, it would be very difficult for them to remember another one. And that means that it would be very difficult for you to succeed with a new search engine. There is another thing about the drawers (the mental categories in our heads). We somehow always tend to think that the first brand to get inside one of the drawers is the best one. So if the first brand to get into your head as a search engine is Google, you are automatically going to consider it the best. If Facebook gets into your head the first as a social network you are going to consider it the best. That’s how it usually works.
“The way our mind works makes it much more difficult for new business to enter high competition niches.” And there is another thing about it, in the same way as it makes difficult for new business to enter the niche (the mental category) it also makes it difficult for the already established brands to expand to more niches. For example: people already know “Google” as a search engine, so when Google tried to expand and created Google + (Google’s social network), they failed with it. Because people just go like “oh wait a second a Google, you are a search engine, not a social network” And it would work in the same way if Facebook tried to become a search engine. It sounds ridiculous right, Facebook is a social network it is not a search engine, if they tried to become search engine, they would fail the same way Google did with Google +. Once you create a brand, that sets a mental category in people’s heads, you can really get out of it. That’s why for example Toyota doesn’t sell luxury cars. Toyota is perceived as a manufacturer of reliable, good value cars, they are not perceived as premium and expensive. And that’s why Toyota created Lexus, because Toyota wanted to be making luxury cars and expand. But if they did it under the Toyota badge, people wouldn’t buy them. Always when the successful brands want to expand into another mental category, they simply create another brand.
Copyright © Otakar Libal 2013 All Rights Reserved
3
And it’s not only Toyota and Lexus, its Nissan and Infinity, its Coca Cola and Cappy, Sprite, Monster and whatever else they have. Coca Cola didn’t start making the “Coke Juice” they made Cappy, and started selling juices under a new brand. Because again, if they started selling “Coke Juice” people would not buy it.
“So what should you do when you are starting out with your online business and there is already a lot of competition?”
The simple answer is drill deeper. Let me show you that on an example:
You have been a whole day in work, and your head really hurts, so you decide to stop by a pharmacy, to get something for your headache. You enter the pharmacy and you see two boxes. One big shiny box that says “medicine – cures everything” and next to it, is a little box that says “headache pills”. What are you going to buy?
The headache pills right? Because that is what you want, to get rid of a headache. If you think of this in info product terms, imagine this situation:
You are 35 years old women, and you just had a baby. You gained a lot of belly fat. And you are on the internet searching for a way to lose weight. And you find two websites, one website says “magic weight loss for everyone” and the other one says “belly fat loss for moms”
What would you get? Of course the belly fat loss for moms, because that is what you need right? Are you starting to see where I am going with this? You are just starting out, and you really want to do weight loss, but when you search out there, there are already a tons of products on weight loss, people are already established, and it would be difficult to compete right? So you simply drill deeper, and instead of being a number 30 on weight loss, you can become number 1 on belly fat loss for moms.
Copyright © Otakar Libal 2013 All Rights Reserved
4
When you know the basic direction that you want to take, which might be the weight loss, what you need to do is look out there and discover what the competition is. If you see that it’s very high, you try to discover who are the people buying the weight loss courses. Is it men? Is it women? How old they are? Why they want to lose the fat? Where they need to lose it?
PEOPLE BUYING "WEIGHT LOSS FOR EVERYONE" Teenage Girls Who Quickly Gained Weight 11%
Moms Trying to Loose Belly Fat 64%
Men Woried About Heart Attack 25%
What you might discover that portion of the people buying weight loss products, are moms trying to lose their belly fat after having a baby, another group can be overweight men worried about getting a heart attack and dying. And another group can be teenage girls that all of the sudden gained a lot of weight as their body is changing and they want to lose it. Once you discover that all of those types of people are buying the general weight loss, you look at the size of each of the groups. What is the biggest group? The men? The women who just gave birth, or the teenagers? Maybe you discover that it is the women who just gave birth. So you go and take a look, what the competition is in the belly fat loss for moms’ niche. If its low, you can enter there, if it’s still too high, you can take a look at what the competition is in the “belly fat loss for men, don’t get a heart attack and die” niche and you simply decide based on that.
“The outcome is going to be, that you will basically render the general weight loss courses completely irrelevant in the eyes of your customers” The competition is going to be much lower, so it’s going to be easy for you to dominate that niche. Simple as that.
Copyright © Otakar Libal 2013 All Rights Reserved
5
Hands on Exercise Why to fight with already established business, if you can just sneak around them, and get part of their customers? This exercise shows you the steps to targeting your niche in a way that renders your competition irrelevant. 1. What is the basic broad niche you would like to enter?
2. What are the different groups of people buying in that niche, and how big are they?
3. What is the level of competition in each of the sub-niches?
My niche that I will dominate is:
Copyright © Otakar Libal 2013 All Rights Reserved
2
Make your competition irrelevant When you are starting out, or expanding your business into another niche, it is always very difficult to compete with others who are already established. Our brain works in a way that it sorts brands into little boxes in our head. So you might a find little box in your head, called “search engines” and in that box you can find all the search engines that you can remember. There is going to be Google, Yahoo, Bing, and maybe a few others. In most cases there is never going to be more than 7 brands in one box (a mental category) in our head. That means that if people already know six or seven search engines, it would be very difficult for them to remember another one. And that means that it would be very difficult for you to succeed with a new search engine. There is another thing about the drawers (the mental categories in our heads). We somehow always tend to think that the first brand to get inside one of the drawers is the best one. So if the first brand to get into your head as a search engine is Google, you are automatically going to consider it the best. If Facebook gets into your head the first as a social network you are going to consider it the best. That’s how it usually works.
“The way our mind works makes it much more difficult for new business to enter high competition niches.” And there is another thing about it, in the same way as it makes difficult for new business to enter the niche (the mental category) it also makes it difficult for the already established brands to expand to more niches. For example: people already know “Google” as a search engine, so when Google tried to expand and created Google + (Google’s social network), they failed with it. Because people just go like “oh wait a second a Google, you are a search engine, not a social network” And it would work in the same way if Facebook tried to become a search engine. It sounds ridiculous right, Facebook is a social network it is not a search engine, if they tried to become search engine, they would fail the same way Google did with Google +. Once you create a brand, that sets a mental category in people’s heads, you can really get out of it. That’s why for example Toyota doesn’t sell luxury cars. Toyota is perceived as a manufacturer of reliable, good value cars, they are not perceived as premium and expensive. And that’s why Toyota created Lexus, because Toyota wanted to be making luxury cars and expand. But if they did it under the Toyota badge, people wouldn’t buy them. Always when the successful brands want to expand into another mental category, they simply create another brand.
Copyright © Otakar Libal 2013 All Rights Reserved
3
And it’s not only Toyota and Lexus, its Nissan and Infinity, its Coca Cola and Cappy, Sprite, Monster and whatever else they have. Coca Cola didn’t start making the “Coke Juice” they made Cappy, and started selling juices under a new brand. Because again, if they started selling “Coke Juice” people would not buy it.
“So what should you do when you are starting out with your online business and there is already a lot of competition?”
The simple answer is drill deeper. Let me show you that on an example:
You have been a whole day in work, and your head really hurts, so you decide to stop by a pharmacy, to get something for your headache. You enter the pharmacy and you see two boxes. One big shiny box that says “medicine – cures everything” and next to it, is a little box that says “headache pills”. What are you going to buy?
The headache pills right? Because that is what you want, to get rid of a headache. If you think of this in info product terms, imagine this situation:
You are 35 years old women, and you just had a baby. You gained a lot of belly fat. And you are on the internet searching for a way to lose weight. And you find two websites, one website says “magic weight loss for everyone” and the other one says “belly fat loss for moms”
What would you get? Of course the belly fat loss for moms, because that is what you need right? Are you starting to see where I am going with this? You are just starting out, and you really want to do weight loss, but when you search out there, there are already a tons of products on weight loss, people are already established, and it would be difficult to compete right? So you simply drill deeper, and instead of being a number 30 on weight loss, you can become number 1 on belly fat loss for moms.
Copyright © Otakar Libal 2013 All Rights Reserved
4
When you know the basic direction that you want to take, which might be the weight loss, what you need to do is look out there and discover what the competition is. If you see that it’s very high, you try to discover who are the people buying the weight loss courses. Is it men? Is it women? How old they are? Why they want to lose the fat? Where they need to lose it?
PEOPLE BUYING "WEIGHT LOSS FOR EVERYONE" Teenage Girls Who Quickly Gained Weight 11%
Moms Trying to Loose Belly Fat 64%
Men Woried About Heart Attack 25%
What you might discover that portion of the people buying weight loss products, are moms trying to lose their belly fat after having a baby, another group can be overweight men worried about getting a heart attack and dying. And another group can be teenage girls that all of the sudden gained a lot of weight as their body is changing and they want to lose it. Once you discover that all of those types of people are buying the general weight loss, you look at the size of each of the groups. What is the biggest group? The men? The women who just gave birth, or the teenagers? Maybe you discover that it is the women who just gave birth. So you go and take a look, what the competition is in the belly fat loss for moms’ niche. If its low, you can enter there, if it’s still too high, you can take a look at what the competition is in the “belly fat loss for men, don’t get a heart attack and die” niche and you simply decide based on that.
“The outcome is going to be, that you will basically render the general weight loss courses completely irrelevant in the eyes of your customers” The competition is going to be much lower, so it’s going to be easy for you to dominate that niche. Simple as that.
Copyright © Otakar Libal 2013 All Rights Reserved
5
Hands on Exercise Why to fight with already established business, if you can just sneak around them, and get part of their customers? This exercise shows you the steps to targeting your niche in a way that renders your competition irrelevant. 1. What is the basic broad niche you would like to enter?
2. What are the different groups of people buying in that niche, and how big are they?
3. What is the level of competition in each of the sub-niches?
My niche that I will dominate is:
Copyright © Otakar Libal 2013 All Rights Reserved
