There’s an old saying that tells us, let your past make you better, not bitter.

Business owners should use a revised version of that saying, let your competitors make you better, not bitter.

I’ve worked with thousands of business owners over the years and noticed a strong tendency, for them to drastically underestimate their competitors. This then creates bitterness, especially toward the most successful of their competitors. It seems totally unfair.

I get to see both sides. And there’s always a reason why one business is ahead of the pack.

• They market their services extremely effectively.
• They offer an outstanding service.
• They offer a unique variation of a service.
• And some do all of the above, plus more.

The most useful place to look when our business is struggling against competitors, is the mirror. We’re either failing to market our business as effectively as they are, (or / and) we’re offering a less valuable service. This means we either need to improve our marketing, or we need to improve what we do. Preferably both.

It isn’t luck.

It isn’t magic.

It is fair.

And it produces predictable results. Every. Single. Time. But only if we care enough to do it correctly.

Today, I’m going to give you an unfair advantage over your competitors.

I was just 29 years old when I started my first business. So I made darn sure to seek out as much advice and as many tips as possible, from those with lots more experience. That’s when I discovered what I’m about to share with you.

It’s so effective, I’ve used it with great success ever since!

It came from my first accountant, back in the 1990’s. He suggested I work 1-hour a day longer, than the average for my profession. This is what he himself did, and it gave him what he called “an unfair advantage” over his competitors.

I did as he suggested and the results were amazing.

Your unfair advantage

Here’s how it works, in just 3 steps.

1. I’m an early bird, so I chose to start work an hour earlier than others in my profession. You can equally add your hour to the end of the day, or add 30-minutes to the start of your day and 30-minutes to the end.
2. I would finish around the same time as them, so I just worked 1-hour more.
3. The pay-off: Over the period of a working year, this gives you an additional 6 weeks (based on the typical 40-hour working week). That’s an amazing one and a half months worth, of extra, highly-productive time, to produce, create and deliver for your clients or customers.

The positive impact on my results came fast and were easy to measure.

But that’s not all.

You automatically get another unfair advantage

Yes, it genuinely helped me get a lot more done. But it helped in another way, too.

By knowing I was working while my counterparts were not, it provided me with an instant, mental advantage. It made me feel that I was more committed, more motivated and more driven than them. This may not have been true, but the inspiration it gave me, and still gives me today, is absolutely true.

If you’re in a tight spot right now or just want to give your business a sustainable, measurable lift, I strongly recommend you give yourself this unfair advantage!

A key factor behind great decision making, is to make sure you are working with accurate information.

In a marketing context:

• You can assume that your marketing copy is as good as it can be or you can split test it. By testing different versions and measuring the feedback, you can improve both your message and your sales results.
• You can assume that your clients and former clients love the service you provide, or you can ask them.
• You can assume that your products or service is still better value than your competitors, or you can do some research and see if they’ve upped their game.
• You can assume that you already get a reasonable number of word of mouth recommendations, or you can compare them to the industry average. Note: I wrote this post about how to get more word of mouth referrals that you may find useful.

You get the idea.

In short, never make a decision without first knowing the facts. Make accurate information the foundation of all your decision making.

Hard work gets a bad rap.

Sure, it’s important to work smart.

Obviously, it’s important to work with passion, professionalism and great care.

But without the commitment to do all the work required, we’re dramatically limiting our potential. All the work required, includes the hard work… the kind of work we tend to either put off or avoid completely.

I’ve met countless business owners over the years, who are great at what they do, but lack the work ethic needed for the success they desire. They either fail to work the hours required, or they do the hours, but fail to do the work required during those hours.

I’ve never met a successful person in any field, who lazy-assed their way to the top. Yes, there are some wealthy businesspeople who sometimes forget to tell us they were born rich or inherited a fortune. But those who start from square one and make it to the top, work hard.

We do well to follow their example.

Why?

They’ve cracked the success code!

By doing the hard work, as well as the smart work, soon enough they find they have the resources to hire people [or buy the technology], to do a lot of the heavy lifting. They can then adjust their workload so it suits them perfectly.

The best way I ever heard this approach explained, was by the late Zig Ziglar.

“If you will be hard on yourself, life will be easy on you. But if you insist upon being easy on yourself, life is going to be very hard on you.”

• It isn’t about over-working.
• It isn’t about working too many hours.
• It isn’t about working too many days in a row.

It’s about doing the work required, during work hours. And then enjoying our leisure time. Nothing more than that, but nothing less than that, either.

If you’d like greater clarity, more energy and dramatically improved results, you’ll find the following ideas really useful. It’s all about how to harness the power of focus.

It starts with something that seldom gets mentioned, yet is critically important.

It’s simply this: One of the fastest ways to massively improve your success rate, is to give your full focus to as few projects as possible.

Photo: Shutterstock

Why focus on fewer things?

When you are a small business owner or consultant, you have a relatively limited number of resources. You’re required to work on many tasks, which larger companies have dedicated teams for.

By focusing your valuable time on developing too many ideas or opportunities, you dilute how effective you can be with any one of them.

What follows are 2 well-known examples of the power focus, along with lesser known benefits of improving your focus.

Einstein on the power of focus

Einstein is famously quoted as saying that one of the reasons for his amazing success, was his ability to focus on each individual challenge for as long as required.

By intentionally choosing to focus on one project or plan at a time, and saying ‘no’ to the multitude of other ideas demanding your attention, you get to give your full mental resources to the development of that idea.

You also eliminate Mind Fog: The fuzzy thinking that comes from focusing on too many things simultaneously.

Steve Jobs on the power of focus

Steve Jobs shared his thoughts on the power of focus, at the Apple Worldwide Developers’ Conference in 1997:

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all.

It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”
– Steve Jobs

The lesson here is clear. In all of your planning, it pays to start by determining what’s the very best use of your focus. Then, give that project, idea or opportunity as much of your available time as required.

But that’s not all.

There’s another major benefit to channelling your focus correctly.

The ‘extra’ power of focus

As well as the benefits already mentioned, the power of focus brings with it another, highly valuable component.

I’m referring to off-the-charts energy levels!

Not convinced? Well, you’ve already seen this in action many, many times. It’s what you witness every time you’ve heard someone talking with great enthusiasm and passion about a project, idea or opportunity.

These high energy entrepreneurs and leaders do not see their energy defused by foggy thinking. Instead, their laser sharp focus brings great clarity. That clarity increases their direction and purpose. They’re then energized and ready to go!

I hope you’ve found this brief look at the power of focus useful. More importantly, I hope it inspires you to take greater control over the number of things you focus on.

If you or someone you know is experiencing a serious business problem, you might find this useful.

I had a chat recently with an old friend of mine. He told me that for the past few months, he’d been seriously struggling with what he described as an urgent, major business crisis. I gave him some advice and yesterday, he called me with an update. In short, his situation is now fully resolved.

Like everyone I have given that same advice to, he said things started to improve within minutes. Today, I’m going to share the exact same advice with you.

When my friend explained what his problem was, I told him to write a list of resources that might be able to help resolve his situation, and then to action each item on the list. The core benefit came before he started working on the listed items.

I’m not a psychologist and can’t be certain exactly why this is so effective, but here’s what I’ve seen happen, over and over again.

It seems that writing the list takes you from a passive, maybe even helpless state, to an industrious state. It improves your attitude. It improves your resourcefulness. It improves your optimism. It improves your motivation and so much more. All this combines to greatly improve your chances of success.

What I find amazing, is that you get these benefits before you take action on the list items. This equips you to be at your very best, precisely when your business needs your very best.

Predictable can be life saving: The braking system on your car is a great example. You need to know that each time you put your foot on the brake, you’re going to slow down or stop as expected.

Predictable can be reassuring: It’s reassuring to know that the quality of products or services you receive from a vendor, will be predictably excellent.

However, predictable can also hurt your business. Imagine a prospective client is looking for a new service provider. For whatever reason, their previous provider didn’t fulfil their needs. The last thing that prospective client will want, is another provider that seems too similar looking, to the one they just fired.

Conversely, they’ll be extremely attracted to providers that combine being reassuringly professional, with fresh ideas and uncommonly great service.

That’s where YOU come in my friend. At least it should be.

Don’t let predictability bite your ass

Being predictable in the wrong areas will destroy your marketing.

• It will attract fewer enquiries.
• It will motivate fewer prospects to hire you.
• It will position your business as a commodity. People buy commodities based on the lowest price or fee.
• It will camouflage your business and stop you getting noticed.

This is the total opposite of what you need in order for your business to succeed.

Make no mistake, it takes guts to build your own version of how a service provider in your niche should operate. It’s hard to zig when your competitors zag. It’s so much easier to play follow the follower. That’s why only the top few percent in any industry truly stand out.

Those of us who want our business to fly need to be smarter than that. We need to only be predictable where it matters. Because the alternative is to be invisible. And a business that lacks visibility, places a very low ceiling on its potential.

There’s a big difference between paying attention, and listening.

Yes, listening is indeed one way to pay attention.

But commercially, we learn a lot more about a person, a company culture or a company as a whole when we pay attention to what they do. Their actions reflect their motivations, beliefs and priorities with much greater accuracy than their convincing, carefully polished words.

Here’s what one of my mentors taught me when I started out in business. It’s saved me from making bad decisions countless times over the years.

What people say, is what they want us to think they will do. What people do, is what they actually do.

I’ve found that advice to be enormously valuable, before making any important, commercial decisions. I hope you find it equally useful.

If the work you’re doing right now feels comfortable, it’s almost certainly not moving your business forward. It’s not helping you make meaningful progress and not leading you toward the attainment of your goals.

Why?

Because your best work never feels comfortable. Here’s what your best work looks like.

• It’s the kind of work that forces you to grow into the person who can take your business up a level.
• It’s the kind of work that inspires you to make better decisions.
• It’s the kind of work that gives you energy and makes you feel truly alive.
• It’s the kind of work that attracts the clients or customers you want.
• It’s the kind of work that gives you a sense of real optimism.
• It’s the kind of work that causes you to make exciting plans for your future.

Look at that list. Now, ask yourself if the work you’re doing is honestly your best work. And just as importantly, if you’re not doing your best work, find out what’s blocking you.