Visions Virtual Assistance Blog

”

Know what is good about your competition

“. This line was written by in one of her free email courses that I subscribed to. She goes on to explain why she feels you should know what’s good about them, but it got me thinking about why I think it’s a good idea to know what’s good about them.

What’s good about your competition can be why someone chooses your competition over you. It may be something you cannot compete with, either. Charisma, for example, is something you either have or don’t. It’s not something you can purchase or fake. Back when I sold real estate there was an agent that had charisma. Me, well, I like to think I’m fun. But I am not a charmer. This other agent was a charmer. Everyone liked him, or wanted to be more like him. From what I could tell most of his business was buyers. At the time so was most of mine. Our buyers were pretty much in the same price range so that made him my direct competition. Whenever I showed a property that he also showed, it usually came down to his client or mine. Lots of times he won out and my buyers were left to find another property.

I couldn’t compete with his charisma, but I could compensate by being knowledgable about the market and about the properties that I showed my buyers. I never had a buyer think, “I wish I had chosen him as my agent.” Knowing his good points helped me to know where to up mine.

The side effect was that my competence gained his attention. When he opened his own office he contacted me and asked me to be a buyer’s agent for him. I turned him down, though. I had too much fun competing against him to work for him.