Handling Competition

I will start this section with a warning:

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING THE COMPETITION!

I used to do this myself. Most business and marketing professionals barely gloss over competitors in their planning. If you don't believe me, hire someone to do a business plan or marketing plan for you. You will receive a plan which definitely has a fancy looking section titled "Competitive Analysis". The section will list a few very well known companies in the same field with a brief description of each and very little else. As I said, I used to do that myself too. I mean what else can you say about competitors that everyone else doesn't already know? Do you remember that I got started in all this strategy dating business after I hired dating agency to help me with my dating? So imagine my surprise when they told me that about 30% of their time goes towards analyzing the competition and figuring out how to overtake them. At first I thought she was joking. Then I thought they were scamming me to add billable hours. In the end, what made my dating strategy succeed was the effort they put into understanding my competitors and figuring out how to beat them. Strategy is really about placing yourself in a position that is better than your competitors so that you appear more attractive than them to whoever matters. So analyzing the competition is EXTREMELY important and if you don't give it the attention it deserves, all the work you put into your strategy could go to waste.

So what exactly is a competitor? A competitor is an alternative option to you. They usually have similar offerings to you. Competitors are dangerous because they are always standing in the way of your success. To understand this, let's consider a simple view of dating. Let's say that you're interested in a woman, Jane. She is considering dating you, but unfortunately, she has 4 other suiters. These are your competitors. Do you see the problem here? 5 guys to one woman. Since you all offer her practically the same thing, then she likes you all equally. This means your chances of success are 1 out of 5, or 20%. If you can find a way to make Jane see you as better than the other 4 guys, then your chance at success climbs to almost 100%. And that's why it's important to know who your competitors are. Only if you know who they are can you become better than them and improve your chances.

To make matters even more complicated, competition is not necessarily other men. It is mostly other men, but it could be anyone or anything demanding her attention and making her hesitate to be in a relationship with you. It could be a very close friend, a sick relative, a job, studies, or even a hobby she is passionate about. To make things less complicated, you can focus only on the men who are competition, but keep it in the back of your mind that there could be other factors as well.

Furthermore, never kid yourself by assuming there is no competition. There is ALWAYS competition. Even if you get stranded on an uninhabited island with a woman, there is still competition to be dealt with. It could be memories of an old love, or a boyfriend she thinks about. No competition means it's an ideal world where she walks up to you and asks you to be her boyfriend because she as no alternative options. But that never happens, does it?

But there is good news. A friend once complained to me that he wasn't getting any matches on Tinder. I told him it's because of the competition. He answered with: "You mean all the other guys in the city, right?" And here's the good new: No, not all the other guys. There is always competition, but it is never everyone else.

Your competition is always limited. But who are they?

Remember, this is not about you. Your real competitors are not the other men trying to attract the attention of the same women. Instead, you need to reverse the point of view. This is about the women. What is important is the women and what they value.

Therefore, your competitors are the men who appeal to the same segments of women that you are focused on. This means that your competitors probably have offerings similar to the ones you plan on offering. So for example, if you are focused on women who value wealth over anything else, then your competitors are obviously wealthy men.

It is easier if you group your competitors by common behaviour. For example, instead of having one group of competitors (e.g. wealthy men) you can have several groups: wealthy executives, wealthy business owners, and wealthy investors. Different groups behave differently and have different qualities to offer. By splitting them up, you can address each group individually and handle them more easily.

Having competitors is actually an advantage to you. By studying the competitors, you can learn exactly what they do to be so attractive. Furthermore, you can improve on what they are offering to be more valuable than them and beat them.

So what can you do about the competitors? There are 3 ways you can achieve an advantage over your competitors. I will list those below, and I will continue using the example of wealth from above to illustrate each. If you have multiple groups of competitors (most likely), you will need to have a separate strategy for each group. In this example, you are focused on women who value wealth. You are a wealthy individual, and your competitors are wealthy individuals, and you all are attractive to the women because of your wealth.

• Do the same things differently
  Using this strategy, you are still offering the same things as your competitors, but in a different and better way. For example, the others advertise their wealth on their profiles by saying "I'm rich. I own so many properties and cars." OK, good for them. They own property and cars. How is that benefiting the women? They don't know. You on the other hand, can use a different approach. You would say, "I'm rich. I love to travel and looking for someone to share my adventures with." Here, you stand out, not only because you're different, but because you put the focus on the women instead of on yourself. In reality, you are all still offering the same thing, but the approach is different.
• Do different things
  Using this strategy, you offer something different from the others. For example, the others are advertising their wealth on their Tinder profiles and other dating platforms. You, instead, create a profile on LinkedIn. LinkedIn isn't a dating site, but there are so many women with needs there. Of course, you don't say in your profile that you are looking for a date. But you do have nice pictures, and an impressive bio, and when women contact you there, there is nothing stopping you from getting to know them better and eventually asking them out. As I said at the beginning, you need to think creatively.
• Don't do certain things
  This strategy is a bit tricky and you have to be careful with it. In many cases, there is uniformity among competitors as to what they do and what they offer. For example, let's say they all have Tinder profiles, they all have public pictures, they all say great things about themselves. Think of what things they do that you can eliminate from your offering to make yourself more interesting. For example, you could choose not to have any public pictures of yourself for anyone to see. This could create a sense of mystery for the right audience.

Please note that the examples I use are very simplistic to make it easy to understand. In reality, you have to be a lot more creative and it depends strongly on the exact needs of the women you are focused on.

For each of the 10 needs-based segments you identified in the Segmentation section, think of the competitors who can meet the needs of that segment. Describe them, what they can offer, and how they go about attracting the women of that segment.

Keep in mind that, in our case, a competitor is not one man. It is a group of men or other alternative options who share the same offerings. For example, wealthy men is one competitor group. But, depending on the need of the segment, this may be too general. The women of that segment may not be interested in all wealthy men, but a subset of them such as wealthy real estate investors. So, in this case, the subset is the competitor.

Positioning