In September of 1960, J.F. Kennedy engaged Richard Nixon in the first presidential candidates’ debate. Kennedy’s opening statement in that debate has now become the famous “I am not satisfied” speech. Besides the rhetorical power of that speech in its repetitive use of the phrase “I am not satisfied…”, what is interesting about it is how Kennedy used it to pull the rug out from under what he knew would be Nixon’s strategy for the debate: Red-baiting. While Kennedy did start by describing the communist threat of the Soviet Union and China, the main body of the speech is about the internal failure of America. Kennedy stole what he knew would be Nixon’s main arguement (the communist threat) and turned it to a debate about domestic, social, and government failures. What Kennedy’s team rightly strategized was that in any competitive environment, political or businesses, sustainable success starts with focusing on your own house. You will not win the race by focusing on the competition. There are a number of reasons for this.
It’s always too late.
Competing by focusing on the competition is always a ‘trailing’ activity. Your competition moves; you react. This carries the significant risk of always being too late to the dance, and one step behind the music. Further, it breeds a mindset that looks backwards and adjusts to the agenda of others, rather than looking forward and setting your own agenda to make your customers happy.
It is usually inconsistent with your values.
There are three main reasons why any initiative fails: inadequate planning, inadequate time, doing something inconsistent with who you are. In my experience new strategies undertaken by businesses that are not in keeping with their values (which are written down in their mission statement, right?) are inevitably abandoned, or worse, lead to unproductive distractions. And if your competition is dictating strategies, there is a great likelihood you will be reacting from a place outside of your best values.
Your competition is probably wrong.
In fact from a branding perspective, they almost certainly wrong. Your brand is primarily defined by how your customers perceive you, and by the relationship they have with you. From that perspective, making marketing decisions in reaction to a competitor will throw that relationship out of whack. If your competition really were right for your customers, they would be doing business with them. They aren’t, so focus your decision-making on the customer relationships you already have.
Your competitors are a distraction.
Literally. If focus is one of the absolutely key preconditions for success, to the extent your competitors are able to distract you, they are taking your focus from your customers and your own values. By staying focused on the market environment, on what really matters to you, and on the most direct lines with your customers you will keep your competitors reacting to you rather than the other way around. This is exactly what Kennedy did in 1960. He had not heard Nixon’s opening statement yet, but his team had a pretty good idea that the main thrust would be the ‘communist threat’. Kennedy was able to use his superior rhetorical skills and the brilliant strategy of identifying the greatest threat to America’s security as being internal failures which weakened the country’s ability to deal with its enemies. This worked so brilliantly because it spoke directly to Kennedy’s ‘customers’: it touched their own deep vein of dissatisfaction with the status quo, and connected it to the ‘red scare’ of the times, synthesising a message of real power. How do you ensure you are keeping your focus where it belongs? Here is a quick practical checklist based on my work, that will make sure that you are focusing your energies on taking care of your own house: As the last year or so has shown, on Wall Street and on Main Street, the most aggressive, competitive, slickest operations fall like a house of cards if they aren’t focused on what really matters: extraordinary relationships with customers, and sound financial, operational, and human resources fundamentals. “It’s what’s on the inside that matters” is more than just something your grandmother would say when you first commented inappropriately on the phenomenon of physically unattractive people. It is the real foundation of a sustainably competitive business.
- Size isn’t everything. Want real world proof? Check out the rise and fall of the Royal Bank of Scotland, vs. the Royal Bank of Canada. Until the financial sector reboot, there was lots of crying in Canada about “how come Canadian banks can’t be big and exciting and powerful and sexy like all those European and American banks??” I think we have our answer now.
