Let us face it. We are often spending too much time worrying about our competition and what they are doing to outbid us. In fact, I have seen this happening with many business owners like me and end up having spent most of their time trying to outdo their competition that they end up doing nothing else but that.

This is not only true to a few, but many companies are actually guilty of this.

When we are in business, we would often see others who would be running many deals, offering better coupons, producing more outrageous collaterals such as brochure printing, and even doing and offering everything they could just so they get ahead of us. And what do we do? We follow suit. We would offer the same deals, print brochures that of the same quality, offer the same discounts. We would always want to be similar if not do one better than the Joneses. In fact, we would simply stop whatever we are doing just so we can basically stoop to their level. Despite us having better products and services, more skilled employees and better customer relations.

And what do we get for our efforts? It made our own customers wait for us to level with the competition, and in the process make them shop for their needs. It definitely increased our marketing costs because we are trying to outdo our competition. And worse, it decreased the impact we have on our customers to bring better benefits because we are now at a level of our competition. All of these things would eventually make a big impact on our profits – for the worse.

By worrying too much and trying to copy what our competition is doing, we are doing more harm than good to our business. Instead of being proactive in looking for ways to be different and unique so that we would stand out, we often find ourselves at the same level with our competition. We lose our chance of becoming leaders in the industry. And we just become like the other businesses, nothing more.

Which leads us to my point: being reactive to what the competition is doing is good. But too often, it only leads us to becoming less than what we can achieve for our business. It actually keeps us from growing and becoming more important in the eyes of our customers.

The bottom line to this is this – yes, you need to have an eye on your competition. But not too much that you forget to become a unique and better business for your customers.

Do not let the things that your competition is doing drive your decisions. Do everything you can to improve on your business without having to base it on your competition. You will definitely see a marked difference in your bottom line.