If you haven't got enough customers then 'hug' those you have!

What are your emotional coping mechanisms for Competitive Anxiety in Business?

At the end of the month, when you sit down to do your BAS and realise that the new competition in town has effectively cut into your customer base and your forward bookings and turnover has dropped what helps you sleep at night and not stress out?

This blog does not pretend to have the answers, only questions and suggestions. What we need to do is have a conversation – to share what we have done to overcome that dreaded feeling of being competitively frozen.

Since the dawn of time human beings have been fundamentally competitive.

The very notion regarding survival of the fittest is hard wired into our DNA.

Without the adaptive survival skills we evolved over the millennia we, as a species, would have been eaten long ago. So it is in small or large business enterprises.

The “dog eat dog” culture that has pervaded our business world has encouraged this “survival of the fittest” mentality. And that works well and feels great when you are the “innovation disruptor”. By that I mean, when you are the “new kid on the block”.

Being the newest business in the market sector can feel great. That brash confidence has a certain degree of momentum. You feel “edgy” and full of that market leadership zeal.

So, you settle into your routines. Your systems are in place and you have attracted a sustainable client base to achieve a reasonable turnover. THEN . . . out of the blue that vacant building down the street suddenly has newspaper on the windows and people are busy creating something behind closed doors. You wonder and indeed hope that it is not another competitor in your product or service specialty. You pray that it is someone opening a business completely different from you. After all, you are the edgy new guys.

But, alas, your fears are realised and damn it, when the newspaper screen comes down, there it is, your latest competition offering very similar products and services to you, but now in a shiny new facility and some of the employees you discover used to work for you and know all your systems and approaches.

The night sweats begin.  You spend a crazy amount of time Facebook stalking them and getting really annoyed that they look like they are having more fun in business than you are – and double damn it you spend way too much time looking behind you at what your competition is doing and not what you need to do to continue innovating.

But the irony of being the innovation leader in an industry is that other companies will simply copy you. I thought that if we all focused on innovation, “may the best innovator win.” That’s not the case, because sometimes it’s the best copier who wins. (We’re using Facebook, not Myspace, right?

This forces us to reevaluate our strategies, and compete through innovation.

Innovating means taking a risk, and it makes us vulnerable to successful copycats. But the consequences of not improving existing products, creating new ones, or embracing emerging markets at the right time is to be outpaced by our competitors just when we are patting ourselves on the backs for implementing less risky strategies that normally sustain us. So, we channel our competitiveness into innovation to survive.

Now, that all sounds just peachy. Just innovate to survive. But first how do we overcome that natural human emotion to “hate” our competitor to be so preoccupied with self-doubt that we neglect our own business, employees and sadly the people who have stayed with you – your regular customers.

I remember hearing this statement from a Group Fitness instructor when they turned around and saw that only a handful of people were waiting for them to start the class: “Well where is everyone?”

Boy that question was an atmosphere killer. That teacher effectively said: “you people don’t count, you are always here, I really want my room filled because I am so great.”

In small business, and let’s face it most of us in the fitness industry would fall into this category, is an emotional journey. The buck, for your successes or failures, stops with you. In large companies with hundreds of employees it is easier to deflect blame to market volatility, or bad decisions of other departments. But in a small business we live with our mistakes and flourish with positive attitudes.

The degree of emotional torment a small business owner can go through can devastate a business within the passage of one BAS period.

Instead of innovating, some business just slash their prices to compete.

 Forced to do more with much less, the small businesses that have managed to survive and even thrive during these tough times have recognized one important factor: You can’t always compete on price, but you can compete on service. And the best thing about great customer service is that providing it doesn't cost you an extra cent.

 Remember, customers are concerned about their own financial security. When they walk into a business, they need to feel cherished and special.

 They need to be ‘hugged’ by great customer service. Customers don’t expect to get bottom-of-the-barrel prices everywhere they go, but they do expect to be treated with respect.”

Great customer service doesn't just happen. It starts with employees who have been trained in the science of service.

Today, not every business is getting customer service right, but not every business is getting it wrong, either. Fortunately, for any small business owner looking to improve his customer service, valuable lessons can be learned from both the good and the bad.

I faced this dilemma of being frozen by competitive anxiety. I agonized over why my market share was not what I was accustomed to. It paralysed me. The whiff of depression started making it’s presence felt. Then, it clicked. Go out and analyse what other businesses are doing. What is their customer service like?  What can I learn by good examples and poor.

We all know this stuff. Most of us would have done many customer service and management courses over the years, but as soon as competitive anxiety takes control all your innovative logic goes out the window.

My suggestion, and I am hoping you will have a conversation with me about this is:

“HUG YOUR CUSTOMERS WITH GREAT SERVICE AND HAVE AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE THAT THEY CHOSE TO WALK INTO YOUR BUSINESS TODAY.”

And . . . above all . . .

Don’t focus on the competition, they’ll never give you money.”

Written by Garry Hart
Program and Training Director, BTS