Sean University: Competitorn to Shreds

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Imagine this: a little girl is out trick-or-treating, but not for candy. Instead everyone has one $ 100 bill and then fifty $ 1 bills. And every trick-or-treater only gets one bill. Obviously, the little girl wants to get to every house first for the hundreds. But on her way, a little boy trips her, says, “Where we’re going, there’s no amount of science that can save you, professor!” and then runs ahead getting all the big bucks. 

In this case, the little girl is a metaphor for your business, the little boy is a metaphor for your competitors, and the money is a stand-in for candy which is a metaphor for money. What the little boy says is a line from a screenplay I’m working on (if you’re an agent, call me!).
 

Now, you’re probably thinking, “Forget it! I don’t want to start my own business if I’m just going to be pushed around by a bunch of jerks, whether or not they spout critical-acclaim-worthy lines of dialogue.” But here’s the thing: that little girl wasn’t competitive enough. She could have tripped the boy back and said, “Thomas, I don’t give a damn if you saw a flying saucer. I’m with Gerard now, and you just need to deal with that!” (Action, suspense, relationship issues! Seriously, agents, don’t pass this one by!)

Not sure where to start your campaign of terror? No problem! At the Sean Adams University of Business Management Development Leadership, we know a thing or two about taking down competitors. Here are a few tactics we find especially effective:

• If there’s a vacant lot near your competitor’s office, rent it. Then instate a company policy of weekly haircuts. Take the freshly-cut hair to the vacant lot and light it on fire. Make sure the fire rages continuously. If your competitor asks what gives, just tell him that you ran out of office space for your Hair Fire Department so you had to put them wherever there was room.

• Leak a bunch of information to your competitor (pretend it’s by accident) about your new product. It doesn’t matter what the product is as long as you say that it’s called I Have A Medical Condition That Makes Me Smell Faintly Weird. Put together a big email chain about how crucial that name is, about how all your company’s success hinges on it. Then, your competitor will snatch it up and hold a press conference where the CEO says, “I’m proud to announce something truly exciting: I Have A Medical Condition That Makes Me Smell Faintly Weird©.” After that, no one will be able to buy a product of theirs again without handing it to their friend and asking, “Does this smell weird to you?”

• Buy a bulldozer to knock down your competitor’s office. Also buy the copyright to the the act of stopping you from bulldozing your competitor’s office. Then, either they let you destroy their workplace, or they try and stop you, which is copyright infringement! Whichever way it goes, you’ve got the upper hand! Basically, you’re telling your competitor, “I’m about to turn you alien life-forms into a bunch of alien dead-forms!”

Tell me about your biggest competitors in the comments and I’ll give you some advice on how to deal with them.
 

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