Creating your competition.
You cannot build a substitute offering within your own company, so build it in theirs.
Competition is inevitable. This is a good thing, it reassures the prospect that the industry is credible and they can test between choices.
- The ‘safe’ choice wins the ‘premium cost’
- The ‘substitute’ wins ‘lower cost of acquisition but longer time to recover sunk costs‘
Another part of this is having the discipline to refer unsuitable prospects to the substitute. The return will be a residual, old prospects will grow into your offering, they will refer you the best of their peers. By doing this your are quickly giving the competition the problemsome, low margin clients. Let the competitor exhaust their resources servicing high demand, low margin clients.
Map out a competitor that you can win the battles for the key prospect/client profile you are pursuing. If this company doesn’t yet exist you have to seek them out.
Breed competition in your test tube.
The End?