NO Competition!!!!!!!

Well said. Also, many marketers sadly overlook the fact that competition is there to be leveraged upon, not being looked as a direct competitor to their market.

Depending on your business competitors can be useful, if they are bad they make you look good. If they are good they make you strive to be better etc etc...

Nothing like a healthy competition.

That's a very naive perspective.

Sure you're unique but that doesn't mean you don't have competition.

Saying that because you're a unique human being that no-one can be competing with exactly the same proposition misses the whole point about what competition is.

Competition is......... whatever your potential customer is spending their money on that would otherwise have come to you.

That leaves a LOT of competition.

If you're selling holidays and your usual customer decides to buy a car instead this year - that car is your competition.

Understanding where your market spend their money and how to ensure you are making the value of your product/service clear to them within that context is what can make or break a business.

If you're just dabbling in a personal business and selling yourself as your business then it's a little different, but that model doesn't scale well so it's not a normal way to create a substantial business.

With that said, I do think that way too many people think of competition from a negative mindset and often miss opportunities to partner with or leverage those people/companies.

If they appear to be competition then there's a good chance they're accessing the same people who you're trying to reach and therefore have value you could use. Rather than think "they're my competition I'm not talking to them" you could choose to think "having looked at their business model, how could I create a win-win relationship with them where we both help each other to help our target audience?"

Andy

Got to agree with Andy on this one.

I run an ecommerce store... it sure looks like I have direct competition. People are selling the exact same products as me, competitors are directly trying to outrank me in the search engines, they're competing on price, offer etc.

If a customer buys from my competitors then they aren't buying from me.

Sure, it varies with different business models and there are ways to differentiate yourself but more often than not... you still have direct competition.

Well said cody! It's about passion and eventually you never noticed the positive outcome on what you do at no time.

Competition exists for a reason. So that you can beat them.