What to Do When Your Competitor Gets Ugly

It will likely happen someday to all of us and this will be especially true when your product or service becomes popular. One day you will find that a competitor is making fraudulent statements about your product, service or company. So what do you do when this happens?

Above all, don't panic or retaliate. Play fair and honestly even though your competitor is not. The fraudulent ugliness you may be encountering from your competitor will certainly create a backlash that will cause them to loose even more business (or customers). Common sense will tell everyone who might read their untruths, that they are in trouble and resorting to using desperate measures to counteract their desperate situation.

What Could Cause a Company to Lose Business?

The #1 reason a company loses customers is due to dishonesty. For this very reason you should always be honest with your customers. Never use dishonest or inaccurate marketing materials to promote your business and do not allow anyone else to do so either. If you do, sooner or later your once valued customers will find out they had been deceived. Never overcharge your customers for a product or service, as they will discover this too once they become more familiar with the product/service's concept, and you will lose their business permanently and cause irreversible resentment. It costs a business 6X (six times) more to find a new customer than it does to make a sale to an existing customer provided your sales tactics are honest.

The #2 reason a company may lose business is due to mismanagement. Mismanagement can be in the form of over-spending on expenses, adding too many salaries to the payroll, excess advertising without a good return on investment, over-populating distributors within a region, careless merchant practices, developing too many products or services and spreading your company's objective too thin, growing your business so quickly it becomes out-of-control and obviously disorganized, and not having your company's own objective or future goals but instead "following" your competitors practices, concepts and ideas.

The #3 reason a company may lose business is lack of knowledgeable, caring support after the sale. Many companies are now outsourcing their tech support to foreign countries and your tech support inquiry may be answered by an individual who has never used the product or service you purchased. Yes, it's true! This is a popular technique being used by larger corporations. It may work for a short time for these corporations, but it is becoming a widespread problem. As a small business owner, it could do your business great harm to outsource your tech support or customer service. Always treat your customers with respect and with timely/knowledgeable support from the very people who produced or actively use your product or service.

So in answer to the first question, "What do you do when your competitors get ugly?" Emotional intelligence and good business practices will tell you that the answer is ... "Nothing". Sooner or later your competitor(s) will fall over their own feet and their unfair business tactics or unethical marketing techniques will be their own demise. We have seen it countless times in many types of business industries (not just web design). That old silly cliché is true and worthwhile advice even in your business operations: "What goes around, comes around."

Common sense generally tells you to be suspicious of an article or review that might proclaim great things about any "one" company. This is particularly true when you have seen other companies who offer services that might be better for your needs. After all, there is no "one fit or one answer" for every individual or company's needs. What works for you may not work for me or our neighbors. The same common sense should come into play when you read something that discredits an entire industry and labels the products/services of all these companies as "bad".

How to Keep Your Business Afloat

The first sign that a business is financially suffering or desperate is when the business resorts to untrue publications about their competitors. You will see this same technique used in political campaigns. I'm sure you've seen it, if you think about it. Political Candidate B digs up some teen-drug-use dirt about his opposing candidate in hopes to get an edge. Whether the dirty info is true or untrue about Political Candidate A, as a voter you hopefully try to base your voting decision on which candidate will do the best job for "you" based on "your needs" or the needs of the entire community as a whole. In the back of your mind you question the motives and honesty of Political Candidate B. The same is true for your choices of what products and services you purchase. Simply investigate your options a little closer and compare the resources you find with your personal needs.

An example of a situation I encountered recently was when my 5-year old HP laser printer bit the dust. I did some laser printer research and came up with the following list of requirements that my replacement printer had to have:

1) Dependability: I wanted to be sure the new printer would last as long if not longer than my old HP.

2) Support: I wanted to be sure that regardless of how much money I spent on the new printer, I would have the ability to get knowledgeable tech support in a timely manner by the manufacturer or a local certified technician (not an outsourced tech located 10,000 miles away and did not speak my native language well).

3) Affordable Price: Based on past buying experiences, I found that high priced items do not always mean quality. My new printer had to naturally fit my expense budget.

4) Easy to Use: I wanted a printer that was easy to use. Just "push print" and away it goes! I didn't need it to fax, copy, scan or feed the cat {grin}. My needs were for a laser printer only thus all the other options where merely icing on the cake I didn't need to spend my money on. They looked cool, sure, but they were unnecessary for my needs.

5) Low-Cost Maintenance: How much would laser toner cartridges cost me? Often times the continual maintenance fees (especially in printers) will cost you more than the price of the printer itself. I wanted to choose a printer that had low-priced replacement toner cartridges, and that were readily available through most office supply stores. This eliminated any printer that was manufactured and branded by any one company where the cartridges were only available through them.

Here are a list of less important options based on what I would be using my new laser printer for:

1) Speed: I really don't care how fast my new laser prints. I'm a patient person under normal circumstances, and as we all know "fast" generally equates to "pricey".

2) Output Quality: I don't really need super high resolution and crisp, clean printing. I'm a web designer and not in the print industry, so therefore the output quality was not that important to me. For those few jobs that require crisp, quality laser printing, I send them out to a commercial printer anyway.

Now compare this list to whatever product/service you are selling or buying (including web templates, of course). If you are selling a diverse product/service (something that is not for a pin-pointed targeted market), you should take into consideration each and every need your customers might have without spreading yourself too thin and still remaining within your own area of expertise. Leave those areas that are missing in your service options to your subcontractors or partners, because that is the area they specialize in. Don't spread yourself too thin because your entire business will suffer.

An example of what I mean: BasicTemplates.com does not offer web hosting or custom designs. Why not? Because we allow our subcontractors and partners who specialize in these areas to make more money utilizing our designs in their own area of expertise, which therefore tremendously increases their ROI by using our designs. We don't dishonestly snatch away our subcontractors and partners customers by offering a competitive service.

It's important to have loyal customers, but making that initial sale isn't nearly as important to your business longevity as providing a quality service/product each and every time and giving your customers a means to make more money in various ways that are well within your terms of service. A company that tries to do it "all" in hopes of adding more cash to their bank account in a hurry will sooner or later get into serious trouble if they spread themselves too thin or mismanage their finances and other business practices.

To keep your business afloat without resorting to ugly business tactics, simply follow the steps outlined above.

In summary:

1) Never be dishonest with your customers.
2) Avoid mismanagement even when your ego insists differently.
3) Quality service after the sale is not an option but a necessity.

If you follow these simply, ethical business practices, your business will indeed prosper. When your competitors don't follow these policies, their customers will eventually be yours. Think of that when your first knee-jerk reaction is to immaturely retaliate.