Claim Your Competitive Edge: Always Be First
Lot of ways to make your small company competitive and gain a lead over the other guys battling it out for your clients. One of the best techniques is, when you have an innovation or strategy to offer consumers, be sure you arrive first. You’ll gain a competitive advantage that will be tough to overcome unless your product or service is a failure.
The One That Got Away
As a young guy in my 20s, I’d been going to the beaches in Maryland every summer season looking for useful things to do, like party and pick up chicks (that is girls or women for the mature yet unwashed masses). Most of the time you end up on the beach soaking in the sun and getting as dark as possible because of how intelligent it makes you look. But Houston, I had a problem. My ethnic background is German, Eastern European, and by now you know that if I don’t get the sun block on in a major way, my summer vacation goes up in the flames of red, burned skin– the anti-chick magnet.
Big problem: How do I get sunscreen on my back at the beach to prevent sunburn while being a bit too shy to ask every passing girl? It is an inescapable conclusion that, in public, your buds can NOT apply sunscreen to your back. Anti-cool points to the max, no chance with any women within 5 miles.
No worries, I thought, I am innovative and imaginative. I take a paint stick (untouched) and glue a foam pad to the end of it. I take it to the beach, apply SPF 15 on the pad, and proceed to apply sun block to my back like a champ, preventing the burn and maintaining at arms distance from my male friends. A true win-win.
“Hey Karl, that’s a great invention dude, you oughta patent it. Toss me another Bud Lite dude.” And so I tossed the beverage and forgot about guarding the idea. Go forward 5 years later, I am preparing for an adult getaway to the Bahamas in the winter by doing the reasonable thing: going to a tanning booth. I walk in and the first thing I see is “The Back Applicator”, a 18 inch long plastic stick with, get ready, a foam pad at one end to self-apply overpriced tanning salon sun block.
I walked out, kicking myself for not getting rich on being the first guy with this idea, knowing the other guy or gal was a flipping millionaire by this point.
My Wife’s Big Idea
About 3 months ago my spouse presented me with an idea while she was two sheets to the wind on Pinot Grigio. I can’t tell you the suggestion because, in my view, it was a game changer. Virtually, as I told her, something that we’d need venture capital to execute but would change society as we know it if carried out. Stop asking, I can not reveal the idea.
Well, we’ve been talking about it for the past few months. I helped out and did some investigation, and guess what I found? Three other companies are test marketing this very idea, maybe not exactly but close enough for intellectual property sake.
Missed again! We’re talking about a spin on the idea now that includes cell phones. What can potentially go wrong?
Our Little Beach
When my kid was four or five years old, there was a little strip of land about two miles from our waterside home via the river that we would take the Jet ski to and hang out. We’d cruise over with my son in my lap doing about 10 miles an hour to keep his head from getting whiplash and spend the whole day there, wading in the water and drinking non-alcoholic drinks. Since we were the only ones there we named this little venue “Jack’s Beach”, named after said kid.
My spouse Lora gets a mural painter to paint Jack’s room that summer, and she indeed paints Jack’s Beach, with surfboards embedded the sand and a street sign marking the territory. Pretty cool.
Now Jack is ten. We continue to go to Jack’s beach. I am not making up this next part, I swear. We went there this year and there is an 8 foot high wood street sign embedded in the sand on Jack’s Beach, with absolutely nothing on it! We did NOT put this there, but it was just too poetic.
Well what do you imagine I did? I got a can of paint and a small paintbrush, Jet skied over to the sign in broad daylight, and gave it the proper name. You can read my kid’s name from 30 yards in the water.
A couple of weeks down the road we meet a couple of new friends while out for dinner in a neighborhood restaurant. They tell us they take their boat to a private little beach for fun and so do their friends. “Where may that be?” I ask, feigning interest. “Oh, it’s called ‘Jack’s Beach’ over on the other side of the bridge.”
SCORE.
Create Your Own Competitive Advantage
OK, I’m not promoting tickets to Jack’s Beach … yet, but these three little vignettes tell a story. Don’t be the doofus who didn’t safeguard his idea of a back sun block applicator to watch someone else get all of the splendor. If you have a plan, even a little one that helps your consumers or does something in a different way or better, claim it.
Is it patentable? Find out at http://www.uspto.gov/ and doing an investigation. Invent a logo and copyright the artwork. Go get 5 sites that other people might want to copy and promote your concept with. Most significantly, don’t hesitate in taking action if you really think it’s a winning concept.
ASSERT THAT SUCKER FIRST! Be the company that sets the new standard before your rival does. Ask yourself these easy questions:
The Development Acid Test
1. Do I see this out there in the current market? (Internet search)
2. Can this genuinely aid my customers?
3. Is this cool and unequaled?
4. Can I visualize somebody purchasing this?
If your answers are N-Y-Y-Y (as in no-yes-yes-yes) to these questions, go claim that beach my friend! If your concept is awful and no one replicas it, you can still make money at it or at worst, you lost a few bucks and a little time. If you get copycats, you know you’re on to something. If you’ve done it right and yield value on the promise, your opponents will always be behind and you ‘ll be patting yourself on the back, with either your hand or your $10.99 Back Sun block Applicator.
About the Author: Karl Walinskas is the CEO of Smart Company Growth, a business development firm that helps small to mid-size professional service firms build competitive advantage in an online world of sameness. He is author of numerous articles and the Smart Blog on leadership, business communication, sales & service, public speaking and virtual business, and Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership, available in the SmartShop. Get your FREE LinkedIn Profile Optimization eBook & Video Course, Video Marketing video and course, or Mastermind Groups e-course & video now.
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The first answer is the ones that killed my ideas almost every time.
I’ve always realized that there were already a copy of “my idea” out there
Always Be First is a statements that every entrepreneur should keep in mind in any business
there are always new things to create and invent, but the most common mistake many make is that they ask people about their idea is good, etc. and suddenly have someone else take your idea and created them. Be quiet and just do it if you believe in the idea.