Video Transcription: Another common business planning mistake or mistake when you're starting a business is the failure to understand and the failure to get benefits from your competitors because there's a tendency to think I'm the best I'm gonna win me me me and I know this and it doesn't go away this has stayed with me for a long time and it's a very poisonous mindset and I have to fight it all the time because I'm always thinking like I'm the best I'm gonna win but it's not true and competitors are also great and so the smartest thing to do for me and what I recommend is to fight that urge to think like I'm gonna destroy the competitors and learn from them so here are my suggestions first of all do your due diligence goggle for your competitors see who they are also ask your clients about art have they tried any of your competitors was there something that was good was there something that was bad during your conversations with your clients make this a part of that conversation like hey what other solutions are you trying what's good about those solutions what's bad about those solutions and after those two steps of googling and researching and after talking to your clients and seeing what are the common things that they're using you have to literally go and use their products or websites sometimes you even have to buy it it's okay it's usually not that expensive if you buy then use it you will get a real insight of what they're doing well and right after that go and use yours because there's an equal tendency to think like we are great whatever we're doing is great but whenever I've done that the truth is I'm like oh my god my stuff is really not that great I thought it was better than it actually was so use it side by side and be honest and don't just do that but have other people who are not biased who are objective maybe a family member of course.
They're a little subjective but not nearly as subjective as you are coz you're probably the most subjective person in some sense cuz you you really want to win and you can ask your clients to use your product side by side and so on and so on so you can learn what people like about the competitors products and then guess what you can fix the ways in which you are behind so you want to learn what they do well and what they do poorly whenever you see what they're doing poorly that's your opportunity to get ahead whenever you see something that they're doing well that's your learning opportunity for you to start catching up to the what they're doing well and not be lagging behind them and another thing that's mental stretch but very important you don't just want to use their products you want to actually become friendly with them network with them and collaborate with them on some things even because competition is fine but there is a concept of co-op partition cooperation while competitive because let's say there's ten companies in your space and you network with one well you and the other one can win and beat out the other eight by helping each other that's a very common thing Plus on a human level no one will understand you like your competitors will understand you if you were the CEO of one company or the founder that founder of the other company oh my god they're like your mental family right they know exactly what you're going through because they're going through it all the time so there's a lot of bonding and sharing also that can happen it's ironically weirdly can be even a support network in a way over time and it's a fantastic way to build business relationships in your industry so try to look at competitors that way there's so much to gain from them if you just open up to it.
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