|
76
THE 10X RULE
Exercise
Write down how your upbringing has infl uenced your
goal setting.
What are some goals you would set if you knew you
could achieve them?
What are other goals/purposes that align with primary
goals that would further fuel your actions?
Look at the list of goals I wrote and fi nd two things they
all have in common.
C09.indd 76
C09.indd 76
3/3/11 3:40:05 PM
3/3/11 3:40:05 PM
77
CHAPTER
10
Competition Is for Sissies
O
ne of the great lies perpetuated by mankind is the idea
that competition is good. Good for whom—exactly? It
might help provide customers with choices and compel others
to do better. However, in the business world, you always want
to be in a position to dominate—not compete. If the old saying
is, “Competition is healthy,” the new saying is, “If competition
is healthy, then domination is immunity!”
From what I have seen, competing with others limits a
person’s ability to think creatively because he or she is con-
stantly watching what someone else is doing. The reason my
fi rst business has been so successful is because I created sales
programs that introduced a truly original way of selling for
which there was no competition. It was clearly a new way
to think and approach selling. No one had done anything
other than just copy one another for the past 200 years. So
I ignored the competition and did something created a new
sales process called “Information-Assisted Selling.” This was
before the Internet and before consumers had information
C10.indd 77
C10.indd 77
3/14/11 11:08:25 AM
3/14/11 11:08:25 AM
78
THE 10X RULE
readily available to them. I predicted that sellers would have
to throw away the old ways of selling and learn how to use
information to assist them. Although I was ahead of my time
and traditional thinkers resisted once the Internet hit critical
mass, information-assisted selling became a way of selling,
and my competition was left holding on to antiquated systems
and processes. And I came out on top, because people were
thrilled to see something completely new. Forward thinkers
don’t copy. They don’t compete—they create. They also don’t
look at what others have done.
Never make it your goal to compete. Instead, do everything
you can to dominate your sector in order to avoid spending
your time chasing someone else. Don’t let another company
set the pace; make this your organization’s job. Stay ahead of
the pack. Make it so that they want to chase you and try to be
like you, not the other way around. This doesn’t mean that
you shouldn’t study others’ best practices in industry trends;
however, you want to make it your job to take those concepts
to another level. For example, Apple makes computers and
smartphones; it didn’t simply copy what Dell, IBM, Rimm,
and others were doing. Apple doesn’t compete; it dominates,
it sets the pace, and it lets others try to duplicate its success.
Don’t set your goals at a competitive level. Set them at a level
that will overshadow and dominate your sector completely.
How do you dominate, you may wonder? The fi rst step
is to decide to dominate. Then the best way to dominate is to
do what others refuse to do. That’s right—do what they will
not do. This will allow you to immediately carve out a space
for yourself and develop an unfair advantage. Let me be clear:
I want an unfair advantage if I can create one. Though I am
always ethical, I never play fair. I seek out ways in which I can
get an unfair advantage—and one surefi re way to do this is to
do what others won’t. Find something they cannot do, maybe
because of their size or their commitment to other projects,
and then exploit that. Maybe they are cutting back during
a time when the economy is uncertain. This would be your
C10.indd 78
C10.indd 78
3/14/11 11:08:26 AM
3/14/11 11:08:26 AM
Competition Is for Sissies
79
moment to expand into those spaces where they are contract-
ing. A company I was working with that was in dental implants
told me the leader in the fi eld had cut all travel expenses and
elected that all client contact is done by phone and over
the Internet. To get a competitive advantage, we decided to
dominate the personal contacts while the leader retreated.
Domination—not competition!
Never play by the agreed-upon norms within which oth-
ers operate. The rules, norms, and traditions of any group or
industry are usually traps that prevent new ideas, higher lev-
els of greatness, and domination. You don’t want to just be in
a race; you want to be at the top of the list of considerations.
Even better, you would like to be the only one considered as a
viable solution. You need to adopt the attitude that you have
so much power in your space that your clients, your market,
and even your competition automatically think about you fi rst
when they think about what you do. IBM did this so success-
fully that all PCs were referred to as IBMs. There was a time
when Xerox accomplished this so successfully with copiers
that you didn’t talk about making copies but rather Xerox-
ing. That is pure domination of a sector and not correctly
protecting your trademarked name. The goal at my sales
training company is not to compete with others in the space
for the revenue or the clients. Our goal is to literally make
sure that every human being on planet earth equates Grant
Cardone with sales training. Achievable? Probably not, but
it is the target we use for making decisions. We aren’t com-
peting with anyone else to be the best in a sector. Our goal
is to dominate the thinking of all people so that my name
becomes synonymous with sales training. Google the term
“sales motivation” and watch my video pop up. That is the
way to approach a sector, goal, or any endeavor—to own it
completely.
You can always learn from those who want to compete;
just don’t chase them. Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, was
said to shop other stores weekly in order to see what they were
C10.indd 79
C10.indd 79
3/14/11 11:08:26 AM
3/14/11 11:08:26 AM
80
THE 10X RULE
doing well and improve on that. At the same time, he also had
the goal of domination, not competition. If you are going to
duplicate the best of what others do, then hammer away at
them, champion that practice, and make it yours. Hone their
“specialties” until they become your advantage. Do so to the
point where you become the expert and leader in that area
and dominate it so incredibly that they no longer even want
to attempt it. You don’t have to be fi rst to the space, but it
is important to be considered fi rst in the space—if you get
what I mean. The message you want to send to the market-
place through your persistent actions is, “No one can keep
up with me. I’m not going away. I am not a competitor. I am
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
