The Law of Focus: How to Avoid Direct Competition (part 1 of 3)

The Law of Focus: How to Avoid Direct Competition (part 1 of 3)
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Full transcript to the video:

Sing: "Aint nothin’ like the real thing, baby. Aint nothin’ like the real thing."

Hi, this is Glenn R Harrington of Articulate Consultants. In this three-part series, I discuss how independent small businesses can emerge from challenging times to better fulfil their potential by applying the law of focus.

These three videos are intended for people with sales growth, customer loyalty, and referral generation on their minds. If you are concerned about market position, client retention, and the overall success of an independent small business, then pay attention.

The law of focus, applied intelligently, can help any business to become known as the go-to source for the customer experience that defines its brand.

When any experience triggers an emotional response, the intellect or logical capacity of the person feeling that emotional response typically weakens – often to the same extent as the strength of the emotion.

Consumer psychology, emotion, and logic are involved when a company thrives. That thriving itself can define its market niche. To the attentive eye, it can also reveal the ideal client profile and wherever adaptation is needed.

Successes and failures provide useful guidance to those who pay attention, who can then conduct business adaptively, innovatively, and realistically in the presence of competition while remaining authentic.

Now, about competition: Imagine that you are the owner/operator of a Chinese restaurant in North Bay.

You could view all other local Chinese restaurants as your competitors. After all, they could take away business from you when people who want to eat Chinese food go to their restaurants; not yours.

You could instead view the owners and operators of local Chinese restaurants as a mix – from colleagues to competitors.

You could also choose to view all local Chinese restaurants as a distinct business community within the local culture.

Now, imagine this: After a soccer championship game, one group of a dozen people decides to go a restaurant to celebrate. Various restaurants are suggested. Why would they choose your place? Your sechuan eggplant hotpot? Your dan-dan noodles?

After some discussion, they choose the local Mediterranean place for their celebration feast. Not your restaurant. Not any Chinese restaurant.

Next year, it could be any one of the other places considered, or a newcomer. With one trip to the grocery store and one trip to the liquor store, it could be a backyard barbecue instead of any restaurant.

Your restaurant competes with every option that a dozen people after a soccer championship would consider for their celebration.

To get that business next time, your restaurant has to be the hands-down winner in enough people’s minds before the group even decides to go out after the game. That’s how to avoid direct competition.

See my article Marketing Tip: Avoid Direct Competition. It uses the soft-drink industry for examples. You can find a link to the article below.

If you were a plumber in Saskatoon, you might view the local plumbers on a spectrum ranging from associates to adversaries. This could be an accurate perspective.

Even so, the do-it-yourself approach with tools and tips from the local hardware store might actually be your top competition, any day of the year. This leads to an important question.

Under what circumstances does your ideal client buy your services? When they come back for more, why do they do that? What gets them to refer others to you? That’s three questions.

Thee more: For what is your company best known? Why do people bypass your competitors to buy from you? When people buy from you – first time or returning – what does it mean to them?

In any industry, in any city, when people responsible for marketing and brand management gather good, reliable answers to these six questions, by paying attention to their market, and in so doing pay attention to patterns in the thoughts and feelings expressed about the experience of being their customer, they enable themselves.

They enable themselves, through their authentic understanding of the customer experience, to express that experience in the words of the people who loyally pay their company for that experience.

They enable themselves to identify the traits, values, and needs of other people who would pay for that experience if they knew that it was available to them and how to get it.

They enable their marketing and brand management efforts to articulate authentic key messages to the right people through the right media.

They enable their companies to match supply and demand effectively and efficiently because they follow the guidance of their target market to be known as the go-to source for a distinct customer experience.

Sing: "Aint nothin’ like the real thing, baby. Aint nothin’ like the real thing."

In the following videos of this three-part series, I describe how two real independent small businesses applied the law of focus to narrow their scope, sharpen their key messages, and expand their success. Check them out. Also, see my related articles at the links below. I am Glenn R Harrington of Articulate Consultants.

Related article – Marketing Tip: Avoid Direct Competition:

http://www.articulate.ca/AvoidDirectCompetition.html

Related article – Three Reasons Why Independent Businesses Need Authentic Key Messages To Succeed:

http://www.articulate.ca/IndependentBusinessNeedKeyMessages.html

Related article – Authenticity Rules: A Reality Check for Creative Advertisers :

http://www.articulate.ca/AuthenticityRules.html