Is It Time To Stop Competing In Real Estate?
By Paul Esajian on July 3, 2015
Is it time for you to stop competing with your real estate competition?
Not quit, but stop with the battling.
It is often posed that competition is good for the consumer. Some companies even say that they like competition to keep them sharp, but is it actually counterproductive in reality?
According to investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Theil in his new book ‘Zero to One,’ competition isn’t as great as it is cracked up to be. In fact, that’s why he explains that with PayPal he originally started out to create a whole new currency versus just being a bank or payment tool.
Whether you love going head to head with your favorite real estate nemesis on a daily basis or not, there are some very good reasons to re-evaluate the competitiveness of the current landscape, and how many real estate professionals and companies handle it.
This includes:
- Racing to the bottom, and pricing yourself out of the business, and crushing the industry in the process
- Pressure to compromise ethics and break laws
- Destroying the reputation of the business
- Wearing yourself out
- Wasting resources
- Distraction from what’s most important
- Doing a disservice to consumers
Theil is also quick to remind us that even if you do achieve a real monopoly, the powers that be will be quick to try and dismantle you.
Don’t Run with Blinders On
If you do decide to take a new approach, don’t just start running blindly. You absolutely need to know what the others are doing, and planning next, and how they may be targeting your business. They could be siphoning your business online or via your phone or brand theft. Or by sabotaging your brand with bad online reviews. You also need to know where the room to maneuver is. Countless entrepreneurs can doomed themselves to fail because they didn’t bother to research the market or keep an eye on developments. Can you imagine trying to create a search engine that competes directly with Google and Yahoo today? How about yet another social media network like Facebook? Or the MLS? So stay tuned in, and one eye open.
What to Focus on
So if you aren’t focused on one-upping, or bashing the competition, or letting paranoia of the competition run your life, what do you do instead? Focus on just doing you. Do your best. Serve your target customers the best. Serve them better than they ever have been before. Focus your energy and resources on constantly innovating ways to do that, and give them more of what they want. Invest in knowing them better, and delivering on their needs and dreams.
Then collaborate with more of those you used to see as ‘competitors’ instead. Work on being the best boss you can be. And just watch how this changes the dynamics of how consumers, staff, and business partners see you too.
This can be hard for many to get their heads around. If it wasn’t everyone would be doing it. But does it just maybe have enough value for you to try testing and exploring? Try giving a little more, sharing a little more, and focusing on these things and see what happens…