I have a new business that I’m working on with a friend who lives in Atlanta. We have two very different styles of working. The first style is for the more hands-on variety. I’m working with a business partner who’s a graphic designer and we’re going to have our own company that designs and markets our services. It’s a business that’s very hands-on and very creative.
I love that. We are going to start a company where we design websites and we are going to sell to the masses. Im going to hire a bunch of graphic designers who are going to work on our own sites and design the front pages.
In the past, a designer or website-builder would only design sites that people would use, but the new way is to design everything and ship. This sort of thing is called “mass production.” A company like this may not sell a ton of products, but it could potentially generate hundreds of tons of revenue from website sales.
The concept has gotten a lot of pushback from some of our customers who feel they have a better deal if they partner with a company like us. As a web-design company, we have always valued the idea of selling to the masses rather than to just one person. The other thing we’ve emphasized is that we don’t want to just sell our designs to one company. We want to sell to everyone.
Our customers hate the idea of a company like us doing business with a bunch of companies that aren’t our customers. They feel that they would have a better deal if they were all working together. They want to feel like they can compete. Our company has grown over the past year from a small web-design firm into the world’s largest online retailer. We are now a huge part of the web’s internet marketing industry.
We have seen this happen often. When a company like us starts to grow, all of the potential customers come together to buy our goods. The problem is that when these customers start to see ourselves as a company they start to look at other companies in the same business as us as competition. They start to consider the quality of the products, the services, the customer service, and the quality of the overall company, as well. They start to consider the whole company as a single entity.
Well, it turns out that the problem isn’t that we’re now competing with other companies. The problem is that we’re competing with the customers who’ve stopped coming to us. We’re competitors, not “competitors of the competition.” Our customers don’t stop coming to us because we are a bigger company. They come to us because they want the same quality and services that we provide. The problem is that our customers don’t know that we aren’t a bigger company.
This is one of the greatest things about being a business owner. You can’t be afraid of the competition. You are a business owner. You are allowed to compete with any competitor, big or small. You cannot compete with your own employees.
It’s also true that the competition does not care if you do not compete with them. The only reason they will make you compete with them is if you do not compete with them. They want your business for reasons I can not fathom, but they definitely know you are doing it.
I love the idea of competition. I’m not sure why everyone hates competition. The truth is, most people hate competition, but that also makes it easier to do things. When there are large companies competing against you, they can cut you off at the knees. It’s a lot easier to just keep your head down and do what you are told rather than try to make a business around it.