{"id":49433,"date":"2025-12-16T08:03:43","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T13:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hingemarketing.com\/?p=49433"},"modified":"2025-12-15T12:12:40","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T17:12:40","slug":"should-you-care-about-your-competitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hingemarketing.com\/blog\/story\/should-you-care-about-your-competitors","title":{"rendered":"Should You Care About Your Competitors?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Should you pay attention to your competitors? Chances are, you are curious about which firms you compete against. When you win a competitive bid, for instance, who were the losers? And when you lose\u2014to whom, and why? What else can you learn from your rivals?<\/p>\n

Does any of this even matter?<\/p>\n

Not long ago, I wrote about how well you may or may not know your competitors<\/a>. Now, I want to explore two arguments on the topic of whether you should keep tabs on your competitors. Both sides have interesting things to say.<\/p>\n

What the Naysayers Say<\/h2>\n

There is a school of thought that says, No, don\u2019t worry about your competition. Focus instead on running your own business. Trying to keep abreast of your competitors is a distraction you can\u2019t afford.<\/p>\n

These folks make an excellent point: When firms focus intently on competitors, they tend to look to them\u2014especially the largest, most visible firms in the industry\u2014as role models. In trying to emulate these competitors, however, firms fall into a trap. They start to look and say the same things as those businesses they admire. Instead of trying to differentiate themselves, they look to the industry leaders for easy answers.<\/p>\n

This is why so many firms describe themselves as \u201ctrusted advisors.\u201d It\u2019s why the color blue dominates firms\u2019 logos in every industry. It\u2019s why so many websites look alike. Instead of becoming leaders themselves, these firms are cementing their status as followers and wannabes. Lacking any new ideas themselves, they struggle to attract a wider audience and grow.<\/p>\n

In Hinge\u2019s Inside the Buyer\u2019s Brain research<\/a>, our research team uncovered another big problem with focusing on the competition. Most professional services firms don\u2019t actually know who they compete against. When we asked firms to list their top competitors, and then asked their clients what firms they considered when hiring the firm, there was just a 25 percent overlap. As I\u2019ve pointed out in other articles, that means three quarters of your competitors aren\u2019t even on your radar. Whoops!<\/p>\n

What the Yeasayers Say<\/h2>\n

On the other side of the fence are a faction who believes you should know your enemy (or, if you are the more charitable type, your frenemy). They ask, how can you possibly set your business apart if you don\u2019t understand what your industry peers are doing and saying?<\/p>\n

This argument also makes a lot of sense. After all, differentiation<\/a> and positioning<\/a> don\u2019t mean much if you aren\u2019t setting up a contrast between your firm and those you compete against. If you don\u2019t know much about your competitors, you are marketing your firm with your peepers squeezed shut.<\/p>\n

This camp also advocates for keeping an eye on what\u2019s happening in your industry. What new services are your competitors offering? How are they using emerging technologies like AI? Are they up to anything interesting\u2014something you may have missed?<\/p>\n

Finding the Common-Sense Common Ground<\/h2>\n

If you look carefully at these two perspectives, you will find that they aren\u2019t in fact diametrically opposed. Each side is worried about a specific set of issues, most of which are not incompatible with the views of their counterparts.<\/p>\n

Both, for instance, recognize the importance of differentiation. In the case of the naysayers, they point to a real danger in paying the wrong kind of attention to the firms you admire. It can promote a laziness that masquerades as strategy. Just because you look and sound like a major player in your industry doesn\u2019t help the poor buyer who is just trying to understand what\u2019s unique about each competitor.<\/p>\n

In short, most naysayers are concerned about firms obtaining a superficial understanding of their competitors then veering into waters that feel \u201csafe.\u201d It\u2019s not hard to see how those waters are strewn with hidden rocks and sandbars. That \u201csafe\u201d means \u201cfamiliar.\u201d And familiar means undistinguished. Ships have sunk in far less treacherous seas.<\/p>\n

But what if you could uncover intrinsically valuable insights about your competition\u2014without wasting valuable time? This is where the yeasayers and naysayers can find common ground.* Knowing how your competitors talk about themselves can be an advantage as long as you understand that you need to project a set of messages, values and visual cues that are your own.<\/p>\n

In addition, there is nothing inherently wrong with knowing what new services or technologies a few top rivals are rolling out\u2014in fact, this knowledge could uncover critical gaps in your own offerings.<\/p>\n

You just need to go about it in a way that is efficient and designed to uncover valuable, practical insights. So long as you approach competitor research<\/a> with the goal of differentiating your firm, you will not only avoid dangerous pitfalls, you can approach the marketplace with a sense of identity and confidence you didn\u2019t have before. And those poor buyers? They will thank you by taking renewed interest in your firm and those characteristics that set you apart.<\/p>\n

One final note. I speak to a lot of firms whose leadership believes they have no competitors. As long as they can get in front of the prospect, they can bring home the deal, so they say. The challenge with this assumption is that it\u2019s based on a glaring blind spot, and potentially leaves a lot of unstudied business on the table.<\/p>\n

Say your pipeline is full of referral wins. What about any referrals who never picked up the phone or sent you an email? Why didn\u2019t they call? In some cases, they went to another firm. All to say that it\u2019s just as important to learn about the competitors already on your radar as those who aren\u2019t. How do you find these players? One way is to gather intel on who else shows up in search results for terms you should be found for. You can use tools like Moz Keyword Explorer<\/a> or Semrush<\/a> to see who competes for the same keywords that you do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*To be fair, a few hard-core naysayers believe any<\/strong> competitive research is a waste of time. I take issue with this point of view for the reasons I present above.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should you pay attention to your competitors? Chances are, you are curious about which firms you compete against. When you win a competitive bid, for instance, who were the losers? And when you lose\u2014to whom, and why? What else can you learn from your rivals? Does any of this even matter? Not long ago, I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":49434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[397,399],"class_list":["post-49433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-research","tag-strategy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nShould You Care About Your Competitors? - Hinge Marketing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hingemarketing.com\/blog\/story\/should-you-care-about-your-competitors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Should You Care About Your Competitors? - Hinge Marketing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Should you pay attention to your competitors? 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