March 4th, 2009 Chris
In my life in the corporate world, we were very sensitive of the competition. Fighting for scarce customer resources meant that we had be very aggressive at battling those that were trying to eat our lunch.
Often, the fervor spilled over to pretty-over-the-top dissing of the competition. I specifically remember putting up pictures of competitive CEOs and superposed shots of our own management team punching them in their respective heads. It got the sales team rev’ed up and more confident to go do battle.
Despite the energy spent bad-mouthing them, one thing was always true: we never dismissed the competition. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent is critical to beating them. And it requires the acknowledgement that the competition is doing somethings better than you.
While admitting that you were being beaten on a particular front was a little tough on the ego, it was critical to understanding what lessons you could borrow from them and what counter moves you could mount. The alternative was to live in a self-absorbed fantasy land – one in which business continues to suffer while you tell yourself that you’re the best… Not good.
That’s why I was shocked late last week by the response to one of our marketing pieces. An email we sent out discussed the need to be an effective presenter/speaker as a sales professional and referenced Obama’s recent visit to Canada. Specifically, it cited his ability to inspire and motivate – a fact that anyone objectively must concede he’s good at, regardless of your politics.
Well, some of the response was the most viceral I’ve seen in my life. Here are two examples:
I believe you should keep your political opinions to yourself as this so-called president is destroying the America we once new. If successful, he will eliminate any motivation to be self sufficient and take risks to become successful. He’s ordering us to redistribute our wealth to those who are irresponsible. He will destroy our health care system with rationed health care. I am really tired of seeing this usurp in the news and watching the stock market tumble every time he speaks. I would say he is far from being inspirational! He is a sociopath, terrorist, liar, and agitator. Furthermore, I compare the likes of him to the anti-Christ! His loyalty is not to the United States but to his home country. I am not alone; 20 states are currently in the process of using their sovereignty to resist the federal government’s efforts to spend this Country into oblivion.
and…
You, ma’am, must be on some serious hallucinogenic drugs. Obama is burying our grandchildren’s generation in debt, with his “inspiration” and ‘motivation”. You Canadians may embrace socialist tenets, but America, even as bad as our economy is now, is a great capitalist-based country. For instance, why do you think your countrymen come to the US for state of the art health care? Because our capitalist innovations keep or medicine at the worlds forefront. Please don’t use the Obama inspires and motivates analogy with me – he just taxes and spends.
Now, Colleen is always respectful of such responses and politely responds that we, as business professionals, need to take lessons from the strengths of others, even if we don’t like them or their business. And typically those that write these emails don’t respond.
Let me, with a bit more force, reiterate Colleen’s point:
- Oh, extreme right-wing reader, let me point out that there is much to be learned from Obama, even if you don’t like his politics. Especially as he just kicked your party’s ass all over the country. Surely in his record fund raising (from those that make much less than the average republican supporter), record crowds, record public approval ratings, etc… you may find a lesson that your party could use to be more successful in the next election.
- “Anti-Christ”. Are you joking? It is pretty sad when you refuse to believe that the competition has any strengths and, instead, attributes any success to the work of Satan. Good grief.
For clarity, my political beliefs actually do not align with Obama and that’s OK. I can look at what he does well and think – wow, we could learn something.
And – as a complete tangent and in a humble defence of Canada’s health care system (and that used by every country in the industrialized world, apart from the US) - our system is based on the believe that everyone has the right to medical care, not just those that can pay for it. To fear-monger about such a system is just that – fear mongering… Here are a few stats for your consideration:
- Canadians live longer than Americans. That includes the average for white, affluent Americans (to counter an argument made in very bad taste by a particular TV pundit).
- American infant mortality is twice that of Canada.
- Per capita we spend 1/2 as much on health care than in the US (combined public/private).
OK – sorry, I guess that was a bit of a rant. But to reiterate, politics is not very different than business. And in business, we study our competitors to learn their strengths so we can copy and counter them, and we learn their weaknesses so we can capitalize on them.
As an old boss of mine used to say to me: you can be right or you can be dead right. By being arrogant and not believing your competition has any strengths you can learn from, you’ll be dead right – and you’ll be broke.
C.
Posted in General, Marketing | 1 Comment »
Last week I went to a conference for users of the CRM package we use here at Engage. It’s called Infusion and in the last couple of years it gathered a base of over 2500 small businesses.
Like many micro-businesses, we use the Internet to add to our prospect base – basically getting people to come to our site through various mechanisms and sign up for our newsletter. Whether it be a referral from a partner, someone reading one of Colleen’s articles or Google Adwords – we take advantage of their visit to try and get them more engaged with the business.
