You’re Thinking About Competition All Wrong

If you shiver at the word competition, thanks to ridiculous marketers who advise you to steer clear of what they call saturated niches – think again. The more competition you have in your niche, the better it is for you in building your business and promoting your product.

When you see lots of competition in your niche, it means that many people are buying in that niche. Thatís not a bad thing for you. There are some reasons why you may need to change your thinking about competition.

It gets your adrenaline pumping. If youíre building a business and have several other marketers on your heels who are winning contests, promoting like crazy and who are challenging your sales quotients, itís a great way to get energized!

A good challenge never hurt anyone ñ and even if the competition is ahead for a moment, you can make a comeback by getting yourself motivated and keyed up to kick them to the curb.

Let them make the mistakes. By spying on your competition, you can find out what works ñ and what doesnít ñ for them. Itís a great way to adjust your own efforts so you donít have to spin your wheels on something thatís been tried and is obviously unsuccessful.

Or, perhaps a promotion or launch from the competition is unsuccessful, but you think you can make it better by tweaking and adding your own touches to the idea. Make sure you donít plagiarize. It doesnít matter that they got the idea first ñ if you can improve on it, so much the better ñ as long as your stuff is 100% unique.

Competition helps you work and spend smarter. By observing others, you can monitor your own business to see where time and dollars can be saved. Some of their improvements may be great and some better left alone.

The competition may have spent money over something that seemed like a good idea at the time, but falls flat in actual implementation. Better them than you. Keep an eye out for their transparent commentary online.

Competition helps you know your target market. By watching the competition, youíll be better able to zero in on your ideal customer rather than reaching far and wide to find an audience.

Youíll find ways to relate to an audience that your competition may have missed along the way and be able to better narrow down your customer base. When your time and efforts are more precise, you reap larger benefits.

Aside from the obvious learning from the competition what works and what doesnít, you can establish relationships with them that let you share the bounty. Joint ventures, interviews, product reviews and social media sites are great ways to establish working relationships with other marketers and give and take to both your advantages.