Business competition, in my opinion, is that daily work to participate, compete and win in a market for the same client and/or position yourself in the mind of a tribe against one or more other companies that do the same as you. And it is that restless spirit of the entrepreneur in daily competition, seeking and creating better products and/or services to win in his market and who is always trying to reach those blue oceans where his competition has not reached first.
“The reality is that we love competition, at Apple we think it makes us all better.” -Tim Cook
Nadal’s case explains very well the “good competition”. Competing is not looking for the flaws of the company and/or brand in front to attack, it is not looking to win at any price; preparation, intelligence, ethics will always be present in a winner. The recognition and learning of your competitor’s achievements together with the recognition of our areas of opportunity in order to improve them is what makes a great champion. Marcelo Salas Martínez, president of Café Martínez, an international Argentine franchise, mentions, “A very clear example of how to compete BUILDING. Certain business sectors manage to create something like that. Not so politics and some other institutions such as religious, for example, that’s why they have less public every day. COMPETING IS NOT DESTROYING, IT IS HELPING EACH OTHER TO BE BETTER EVERY DAY”.
When a competitor becomes your ally in relation to a specific market, a specific promotion or a specific purpose, the public, and mainly the new generations, will see it with satisfaction and it will be beneficial for both brands; The days of the cola war are behind us. We all remember the great global message that BK and MAC sent during the pandemic, which set a precedent to break paradigms and sit down to think how we can generate sales and positioning through alliance with my competition. A great example of an institution that competes by building (changing a paradigm for more than 30 years), is the current Mexican Franchise Association, which since its presidency seeks to make alliances with other associations and with business chambers throughout the country, for the benefit of its partners. .
In The Art of War by Sun Tzu, it is mentioned regarding COMPETITION: “If you know others and you know yourself, not even in a hundred battles will you be in danger, if you do not know others, but you know yourself , you will lose one battle and win another; If you do not know others and yourself, you will be in danger in every battle.” Knowing and detecting the need of a market, knowing which players play in that market, clearly defining and knowing your product and/or service, planning and defining which tribe you want to reach and having a clear and powerful message will make your brand begin to spread. play on another court. If your competitor is as big as Federer, differentiate your message and your product so much that your game is played on a basketball court where you are Michael Jordan and Federer cannot find the conditions to beat you. Do you remember the fight where Mayweather crushes McGregor? There was no way the latter could win on a court he didn’t know, in a game he didn’t know, and with rules he didn’t know.
Café Punta del Cielo is a clear example of what it means to know how to compete on the right court, talk to the right tribe, on a court where the competition was slow to understand the game against a Federer of coffee. On one occasion Pablo González, CEO of the brand whom I respect and admire a lot, told me: “I am not looking to compete with STB at all, I am not interested in it nor do I want to, we have our own strengths, an innovative, different product of excellent quality. and also we do not go for the same clients, we applaud and encourage what is well done in Mexico”. And it is true when you analyze these words, from the beginning of his company Pablo had a clear message and knew perfectly well how to locate the field where he wanted to play, a field where the main foreign player could not play and where the Mexican competition could not compete. . “I want to be the largest Mexican coffee brand in the full sense of the word, I am not interested in being the chain with the largest number of units” he told me, and I think he achieved it, with a clear message and a defined tribe Pablo achieved get to kicks with one of the most important brands in the world and get people to applaud us and defend us against “Yankee imperialism.” The message generated by the tribe that in Mexico things can be done well was impressive. In PDC you can find the perfect espresso of the best Mexican coffee and in front you will find a sugar bomb where coffee has no relevance.
Every company should work hard to make its own product line obsolete before the competition does.-Philip Kotler
Concentrate and energetically and opportunely apply your strengths. Do not sell everything to everyone, do not sell something today and something else tomorrow, as you will confuse your clients about your area of expertise and generate distrust in your tribe. Focus on differentiation, and never compete for price since in that generic field there will always be a better competitor than you. “Saving your energy by keeping it focused is your strong point. Focus and don’t attack different points at the same time.” Law 23 of the 48 laws of power.
And of course, do not forget our collaborators, our team that is the one that makes things happen. A strong brand and company will make the best talent want to always be with us. Bill Gates said “In the coming years the competition to hire the best will increase. Companies that provide additional flexibility to their employees are the ones that will have an advantage in this area.” Smart people love competition and love to work as a team to get more and better results. In the book Create or Die! Andrés Oppenheimer mentions that Silicon Valley compared to other places in the world is the place where the most brilliant and proactive minds in the world arrive, in fact more than 50% of the population of Mountain View is foreign, what is what makes intelligent people from all over the world gather there? Networking with people equal to or smarter than you; competition is healthy and generates benefits for all. “Cafés are full of young people with their laptops, deep in their start-up projects, consulting from table to table on how to bring up problems, even if they don’t know each other. All these young people want to be the next Mark Zuckerberg.”
In a franchise, knowing which field to play on is essential. Investors (Franchisees) who deposit their money and hope in a brand must be sure that the owner of the brand has these concepts studied, worked on and perfectly implemented. There are many cases in which someone buys a franchise and the owner of the brand is not clear about these concepts, therefore, he does not know where to install the business with the consequent failure and closure.
Remember: Get trained and informed before starting in the world of franchises.
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Your friend the Tsar of Franchises says goodbye to you, see you in the next one.
