We love to compare ourselves to others. We do it all the time.  We compare houses, clothes, cars, jobs, incomes, vacations and the number of Twitter Followers we have!  How about our kids?  You can thank Facebook for making you feel like you’re an idiot parent when you see picture after picture of other peoples’ kids getting awards and ‘behaving’ day after day..post after post.  Meanwhile, you’re kid is still on the couch and just lied to you about having his homework done!

When we compare what we’ve got to others we can often be left feeling pretty discouraged.

It works the other way too.  We can think we’re ‘all-that’ and look at other people and say things like “I’m glad my kid isn’t messed up like theirs is,” or  as I felt at one time in business, “We’re way better compared to that company.”

Either way I think comparisons are a waste of time.  One reason that it’s a waste is that you don’t know someone’s full story.  You don’t know the challenges they had to go through to get where they are.  And, they don’t know yours!

I remember how we’d prepare for an opponent when I was a football coach. The one thing we didn’t do was a line by line comparison of our guys vs. their guys.  Honestly, that could get pretty discouraging after a while! What we did do was take a team that was 1-8 the year prior to our arrival and after a 4-5 record the first season, went on to average 9 wins each year and make a run in the playoffs year after year. We also did it with fewer players than the other guys and in many cases with less talent.

We overachieved.

I want your business to overachieve.  I want to see you go further than you thought was possible. Making comparisons in business can be pretty harmful to you and your company. And so, that is why today I will give you the one bit of information you need to increase your business revenue and enjoy more wins (instead of spending time comparing):

Focus on You

That’s it.  Put your eyes on your job in any given moment and do it.  That’s how we won on the football field.  Sure…there needs to be a strategy that makes sense and takes advantage of the opportunities the opponent gives you, but…you must know what your job is and then get it done.  If we coached a player to get his head on the outside shoulder of the other and “not let him cross your face,” then that was all that mattered.

Get your job done within the context of the overall strategy and we will win.

Don’t Worry About Your Competitors
They may be bigger and more experienced.  They may have pricing that’s cheaper than yours. Their warranty might be better.  It doesn’t matter!  Why not you ask?  Because if they don’t know who their ideal client is and how to communicate with them in ways they will resonate with it doesn’t matter. Your job is to find out the best ways to add value to your clients.

Selfishly Execute Your Job
If your job is to bring the rock and my job is to bring the slingshot, and we both do our jobs, then we have a good chance at beating Goliath.  You do what it takes to know your client.  Put the work in to know your company’s math (you may dig this if you need Math help).  Let someone else worry and focus on how many employees they may or may not have…you lead and train yours to add value.  Let someone else compare their revenue to yours…you make yourself more profitable and keep adding value. We would tell our football players “When we all selfishly do what we’re supposed to the scoreboard will take care of itself…and most times, in our favor.”  I tell you as a small business owner the same thing.

What’s Your Job?

Increasing revenue & profits is fun!  It’s also a challenge, and even more so if you’re spend time looking at your competitors instead of what needs to be done in your own company.