week 45: Without competition your business is dead

the biggest lie people tell is that they are special

thank you to over 11,000 of you who read this weekly and share with your friends and family for behind the scenes on building a million dollar business from scratch and beyond. i also include a personal note in the end so i am grateful that you let me do that without judgement.

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a week ago, i shared about how to create a community-led growth model as one of the 10 go-to-market principles that helped us go from 0 to million in 9 months with two different companies, in different markets with different economic times.

so far, i have shared 6 plays:

play 1: Redefine the problem

pay 2: Your Point of View is your Strategy

play 3: Find you lane of genius

play 4: Become a guide and create a standard

play 5: Create a market

play 6: Build a community-led growth model

today, i want to share the really interesting principle that i learned a lot later in my career.

competition is not only good. competition is necessary.

have you head a CEO say, well we special and what we do no one does.

or a Sales rep say, we can cut you a deal on something we don’t tell to anyone.

the reality is that we all know that it’s either a lie or the person is delusional.

the only thing to do then is this when you hear this is → run.

story time:

with Terminus in 2015, when we started to talk about ABM, there were no companies talking about ABM.

we knew this is a big problem.

it’s like running against an incoming storm with really no relief in sight.

when 2-3 other companies are talking about the same thing that is good.

now you can talk about differentiation and use cases.

people start thinking about it as a market and now are ready make a choice.

the bigger the market, the bigger the opportunity.

if you are the only one talking about your “special” product, there is nothing to compare and that’s not how people buy.

they wait for the market and that’s not good for any business.

so at Terminus, we hosted FlipMyFunnel and invited all the competitors, industry analyst and media to the event and that created a NEW market.

with GTM Partners in 2022, we did the same thing.

we brought it a whole host of partners and now customers to build a new market around the most commonly used but misunderstand term - Go-to-market (GTM).

funny enough some of the companies that supported me in 2015 are still there and supporting this new movement.

for everyone of these events (5 so far) we are doing 1:1 invites thru LinkedIn or email to set of accounts - no mass emails.

then we partner with our customers to invite 3-5 of their customers and future customers for director and above roles.

repeat for each location.

and at the event, there are no booths, no selling except peer networking and problem solving that leads to better ROI.

sounds simple but it requires incredible dedication, focus and discipline.

the story remains the same.

bring people together and see magic happen.

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on a personal note, i have been trying to do a date with my daughter since last year each month.

not consistent but we have done about 6 of them.

she is always so excited that she would dress up, have a gift for me, picked up the a task for us to do or go to her fav place (Panda Express).

i did that yesterday and i tell you, the 1:1 time we spent together was the highlight of not only my day but the month.

the joy of seeing someone excited is worth dropping everything else to simply just sit and watch.

well, since she dresses up, i got to put on a jacket too and it is simply an amazing time.

just like bringing competitors to your event sounds like a novel idea, and we did that both at Terminus and GTM Partners so in life, stepping out and doing something out of the normal is good.

in fact it’s necessary.

instead of breakfast at home, go hike in the morning.

instead of routine, break the rules.

instead of busy, choose a walk.

leaderpoint: when you step out and do something new, you get to live an extraordinary life.