Remember the scene near the end of the movie Karate Kid when Daniel Larusso wins his first match at the All Valley Karate Championship? His girlfriend yells, “Daniel, you’re the best!” and then Joe Esposito’s, “You’re The Best” anthem begins as a montage is shown of Daniel-son defeating several competitors from the Cobra Kai dojo.
You can watch the scene here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBktYJsJq-E
Oftentimes we view our competitors as the villainous Cobra Kai, willing to do whatever it takes to defeat us and run our company into the ground. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, competition can actually be healthy and improve the overall quality of our goods and services.
Last week at the D2D Millionaire Conference we discussed why establishing positive relationships with competitors would likely yield a better outcome than the contrary. One of our attendees couldn’t quite wrap his brain around this idea. His philosophy was to do whatever it took to crush his competitors yet we were preaching the benefits of taking them out to lunch.
Competitor tactics vary. Some take the low road and drop their prices to differentiate themselves from their competition. This is a simple measure, lacking in creativity and also diminishing profit margins for the industry. Wise business owners choosing to reduce price will oftentimes decrease the quality of their good and/or services to maintain the integrity of the profit margin, thus giving consumers the ultimate choice of price versus quality. Either way, keeping the integrity of the profit margin helps all competing companies.
Even in the smallest of markets, there is room for healthy competition. At the end of the day, competition should motivate us to make improvements, and in the long run, these improvements benefit our industries and most importantly our customers. Although the occasional low blow to our competitor may bring short-term pleasures, the lasting results of this action could undermine the very industries we’ve worked so hard to prove valuable.
A constructive relationship with our competitors has the potential to enrich our industries. Daniel Larusso became the All Valley Karate Champion because of the Cobra Kai and if we view our competitors as a means to assist us in improving, they can ultimately help us to become, ‘The Best Around.’