Get an Edge on Your Competition

by Dr. Vesna Grubacevic

Are you frustrated by not attracting enough clients and career/business opportunities? Would you like to know how to stand out from and get an edge on your competition (your competitors, colleagues and peers)?

The best way to gain an edge over your competition is to do something different, and compete on things that are more difficult for your competition to copy. Below are 3 key areas that you can develop as your competitive edge, which will have you stand out in interviews, in meetings and with potential and existing customers.

1. Mental Buoyancy

All highly successful business owners and professionals have mental buoyancy – the ability to bounce back mentally when faced with a challenge. They know how to deal with the highs and lows of business without stressing, they fight back stronger after rejection, and they build their determination after each set back. In the face of challenges, they maintain a proactive, can do attitude. This trait is the key to their long term success.

While your competition is cowing in fear, anxious and stressed about things outside their control (eg. uncertain election date, the economy, new laws, etc), you can stay focused on the things that are within your control and that you can do something about – you and how you respond to other people and circumstances. You can maintain a clear vision, goals and strategies and proactively take action to achieve these. For you to do this effectively and consistently, you need to be free from fears, anxieties and self doubts yourself. Then with a “can do” attitude you can offer solutions; out of the box, creative ways of solving your clients’, team’s and organisation’s problems. Show leadership rather than follow the herd, and you will stand out!

2. Instinct

When Tim Pethick (founder of nudie juice and developer of many brands since then) was asked in an interview about how he makes decisions, instinct or analysis, he replied “Instinct in my view wins every time.” He is in good company. All successful business owners and professionals make decisions quickly on instinct, once they have all the facts.

Stop over analysing – this leads to second guessing yourself, and often, this is how decisions that are later regretted are made. Instead, develop total trust in yourself and your ability to make good decisions. The biggest saboteur of effective decision making is fear. Fear of making the wrong decision, fear of rejection, fear of being judged, fear of loss of control, etc. Fear is the opposite of trust. It is when you fully address all your past fears then you begin to fully trust yourself and your decision making. This is how you can then totally rely on your intuition to take advantage of opportunities, while your competition is busy stuck in analysis by paralysis.

3. Relationships

In business, relationships are everything. Regardless of the industry you are in, whether you sell your products, services or ideas, we are all in the business of selling one thing and only one thing – a relationship! When people like each other, they do business together. As a business professional, you will need to know how to successfully convert prospects into customers and nurture those relationships.

As a leader in your business, you will also need to know how to, on an individual level, motivate, influence and get the very best performance from your team (your employees, colleagues, managers, suppliers, partners, etc). You will need to know how to select the very best team in such a way that you can accurately predict their performance prior to hiring them. You will then also need to know how to nurture those relationships with your team, and retain them for the long term. How you build relationships is the key to success. You can develop strong relationships, unique to you, which no one else will be able to copy.

Look out for our next Business Transformations newsletter where we will discuss specific NLP tips to help you to become a master relationship builder. In the meantime, enjoy using the above 3 success strategies to get an edge on your competition, and watch your professional opportunities grow.

Ever wondered how NLP can benefit you in business? Discover the power of NLP in business …