Business Competition Fight or Flight

Those of you that cruise through Extreme John.com on a regular basis have seen me write articles in regards to some of my competitors, you will also notice I pretty much never mention their name. There are some out there who would probably assume that I don’t mention the competition’s name because I fear legal action, where in fact the main reason I do not mention my competitors name is that under no circumstances do I plan on giving them free advertising.

The EJ Blog has been around long enough for me to realize that there are plenty of people that read my blog, as a matter of fact I am looking at yet another month where I crush my previous months stats. Out of the 2000+ visitors that rip through Extreme John daily there is a mix of all kinds of people, good friends, family, our competitors and of course all the little haters that like to try and get my attention here as well.

When it comes to competition and levels of competitive nature every individual is different, you really can’t take someone that is not competitive by nature and put them into a competitive situation and expect them to do fantastic. Keep in mind I am not saying that a non-competitive person could not possibly do well in a  competitive situation, I am just saying that I think you might be surprised at the lack of results when all is said and done.

I have a very simple outlook on competition and a lot of that outlook is most likely based on the 10 years I spent at Home Depot trying to slaughter the competition like Lowe’s, Scotty’s, Builders Square and HQ in the mid-west. I was born and bread to be competative, from my brothers and the neighberhood I grew up in right up to the various positions I have heald with companies like Home Depot and Staples to name a couple.

I think competition is one of the single most important things in business, I feel that it is one of the very few things that will keep business honest and give customers the best value without being ripped because there is no competition. Now with that said I think it’s important to point out that I treat all competition the same once they make it known that they are targeting our business, I try to make it very clear that Extreme Tan and Smoothies, Inc. is extremely competitive and DEDICATED ADDICTED to providing the best service, equipment, quality and prices PERIOD.

We very rarely will go after competition in any market or in any of our business’s, now the competition that reads this blog is thinking, “Oh BS! How about [intlink id="1905" type="post"]that billboard[/intlink] you put in our parking lot!”. Or maybe the competitor that was part of my Coconuts Don’t Be Nuts article is thinking, “Um yeah, hello… I know you were writing about us.”

Honestly they are right, we did slam a few billboards in the parking lots of competitors before, and yes I have written about competitors here as well, the only important fact to remember is that we never attack a competitor first. As much as I love competition I also respect the fact that in small business there are families being directly impacted by today’s economy and a very competitive market.

One thing I can thank my retail past for is my aggressive nature in ensuring that our customers know that we are serious SICK about our customer service standards and commitment to the best prices. I once sold landscape timbers for $.01 with a Lowe’s across the street that was selling them for $1.00 to undercut our price at the time. It was made very clear to me at that time that for no reason what-so-ever would we allow their price to be lower than ours, hence the $.01. Yes, FREE would have been next.

Over the years we have had competitors that tried to challenge our pricing structures or just copy us period, over the last 5+ years I have listened to everyone tell me how the big boys were coming, Planet Beach and Hollywood Tan and how we should watch out (as if there was anything I could do about it). Just recently we had a new competitor that specifically targeted one of our marketing terms that we have been using for years, I am more than confident that they are reading this now.. Let’s pause for a message to them real quick.

“Hey! We wish you luck, we just hope the next time you ask a specific question in regards to pricing you consider just who might answer that question.” – Nate and EJ

Most of the competitors that have specifically targeted us over the years learned that I really have no fear in taking it into the #ff0000;">red at any time, we take competition very seriously and if your going to target us you should probably make sure your ready to take it just as serious as we do.

I wanted to write this post in order to give you a slight idea about how we feel about business competition and more importantly because I am curious as to your feelings on competition in  business or competition in general, does it fuel you or can you care less? Leave a comment and tell us how you typically handle business competition or any competition for that matter.

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Tagged as: Business, competition, small business