I actually spend several hours a week just brainstorming with my notepad. Everywhere I go I carry one with me, this year it is this nifty little Red Alligator Skinned Journal that my Public Relationist Cindy Rakowitz gave me for Christmas. When I am out, at lunch, in bed, on the computer, phone or working and something hits me I note it in my notepad and doodle thoughts, concerns and goals. When I was at lunch today, I got a telephone call from a colleague, Christy, and she said “Name of one of my competitors, just launched a feature in their application. What are you going to do, that was one of your big selling points?” I just laughed and said “What do you want me to do? They are free to launch anything they want, and I applaud them for doing so, it will make their application more valuable.” I received a bunch of hemming and hawing from Christy – we talked about a few more things and we got off the phone. I went back to eating my lunch, but whipped out my little red book and started jotting some things down.

I believe that the original intent of the ‘doodling’ was to compare my service with their service, but by the end of the lunch I realized that I did not do much comparing. Rather than making a list or diagram of what we have and what they have and seeing who has what I ended up noting down 2 aspects and a sub-aspect of the competition and 4 aspects and 5 sub aspects of us. I was not really focusing on the competition, even though I think when I pulled out the notebook that was the goal. Rather I was focusing on us and what makes us unique and/or the things I want to provide. You will see notes such as: #1 Service = Community, Response, Love, Respect and Disclosure; Providing a means to an end; Listening to users; Don’t reinvent the wheel. By the competition you see Features, Product and Service. Hah! It may be that I just don’t pay too much attention to my competition, or it may be that I am just really self absorbed. Certainly I have to remain alert and attentive to my market and any prospective competition, but if I spend all day focusing on others – will that really help what I am doing? Honestly?

I can’t control what the competition does and neither can my clients, so should we really worry or be absorbed in their actions – or should we focus on what makes us unique. Let’s be honest, so this ‘company’ released a feature that I have and they did not… that is just benchmarking, it is definitely not innovative thinking. I have a couple other tricks up my sleeve that are coming up in the next 2 months, I am sure shortly thereafter one or more of my competitors may do the same exact thing. Oh well. As long as I am the innovator, and they are the benchmarker’s, don’t you think the clients, consumers and people that need our services will see that? I say “Kudos to them – I am glad we taught them a thing or two!”

In summary, to stay ahead of the competition, you need not be focusing on the competition – focus on your market, your customers, your audience and everything that they have to say – you will be the innovator – you will prevail – and your competition will be following in your footsteps. Don’t be upset or worried, be happy! It means you rock and did something great!

-Heather Villa

Related posts:

1. What’s stopping you?
2. This may not be the brightest thing I have ever done – but here are some tips …
3. Lunch 2.0 Launched! #BusinessLunchClub, #BizLunchClub, #BLC

Disclaimer: Names have been changed to protect the innocent (me) from lawsuit.

Benchmarking used to be a very common practice (and still is), however it is not real efficient in the Web 2.0 arena. Think of it this way, Web 1.0 (I know we did not call it that) was all about putting information that was once offline – online. Web 2.0 is all about collaboration and making everything on the web work for you in an efficient way.

What has happened? It has brought SaaS – Software as a Service. That is right, a service, the key word. This is not ABC Computers – calling their Tech Support outsourced overseas… this is Software as a Service, that means not only are you providing a product, but you are providing a service. I bet if you asked most of your clients/customers – they say that the service is worth more than the software. Which is why many SaaS products have built communities around their users.

So, what is my tangent? The fact that the providers of this service (Let’s call it Service #1), have users asking for things for months and years but never comply. Users ask over and over, hundreds of users, and Service #1 keeps ignoring the requests or providing lame excuses. Just so you know – that is not my tangent – let’s be honest, developing a software is hard work and it takes time, money, patience, prioritizing and thick skin. If a software service provider cannot provide something, I understand.

My tangent is when… a new provider (Let’s call it Service #2) comes into the market place with a nice service and it has a demand because it is offering what what Service #1 never offered -the common request(s) from it’s user(s) – and all of a sudden Service #1 catches wind of it and says “oh yeah we are releasing that next week or in two weeks”.

WHAT?

So let me get this straight…

1. You sell a product and service

2. Your users ask for something, repeatedly.

3. You ignore or turn them down

4. Somebody else takes the time to build it

5. Then you think it is important to do?

How is that fair to your users? It’s not.

So… two pieces of advice:

Tip 1, to Users: Be loyal to those who listen, yet at the same time fulfill your needs, there will be service or combination of services that fulfill your needs. Remember you are the paying customer, you should not need a competitor to enter the market in order to light the candle under your service providers tush in order to get what you deserve!

Tip 2, to Service Proviers: Listen to your users, they are your community, they are your followers, most times they pay your bills! Respect them, listen to them and try to please them within reason. If you can’t do something, be honest, but don’t say you can’t and then do it because someone else did it!

Well – that is my tangent and with that, I say Happy New Year and Good Night!

Best,

Heather Villa

Related posts:

1. Staying Ahead of the Competition…
2. Business “best practice” in today’s economy
3. Project management best practice: The report