Pork scratchings are your competition

What the heck? I said this the other day. I was talking to a friend about work he is doing with an alcohol drinks company. They are launching a new product and made the mistake of seeing their competitors only as other alcoholic drinks producers. This is a common error. Rather than looking at people who do the same thing as you, it’s important to look at people who’s products have the same impact as yours; or are used to achieve the same end as yours. I talk about this a little in my book “Do Disrupt” when I explain that competitors to a bike shop also include meditation classes (think a blend of relaxation, exercise, strength, meditation of sorts) but it’s arisen a couple of times with clients recently.

So back to pork scratchings. Alcoholic drinks are used in many ways, one of those is as a “soft” treat; a cheeky reward at the end of the day/week. So they compete with going to the cinema, going bowling, or watching a movie with a packet of pork scratchings on your lap. A cheeky, nearly-naughty, treat. You need to think about how these things make you feel (not just oily and a bit guilty). It’s the outcomes of your products and services that matter.

So, keep your radar on; look leftfield, look rightfield; look at the impact of what you sell, not what you sell. How does it make people feel? That’s your competition.

I work with great companies to remind them what it is they are really selling and how to sell it. We start with purpose not ouitput. It works. We've increased sale by as much as 8000% and reduced costs by over £120 million. I wish i was paid on performance.

Image of the mighty Guy Martin was shamelessly "borrowed" from the internet.