Are you afraid of competition?

Well, you should be more afraid if there was no competition in your particular niche.

This post was prompted by a really dumb comment in another group about the amount of competition there is on Etsy for ‘Digital Planners”.

The author stated that there were over 98 000 results on Etsy for that particular keyword phrase and why would anyone want that kind of competition.

She was promoting her Etsy course to her group which focuses on printable planners.

What she failed to mention though is that if you do a search on Etsy for ‘Printable Planners” you get 156 000 results. 

The amount of competition is not the point.

As seasoned KDP publishers, you are already aware of the massive competition we face on Amazon from other Low Content No Content book creators. 

That has not stopped thousands of authors earning a fortune on Amazon in this niche. It has certainly not stopped thousands of people earning a fortune selling both digital and printable planners on Etsy.

So what is the problem with competition? 

There is no problem.

Competition is VITAL to your business success.

• Competition builds market awareness and penetration

A few years ago, people had never heard of a digital planner, let alone what it did for them. Even today, I have people saying to me “I had never heard of them before”.

As more people get to hear about them, they will be curious. Some of them may even go and buy to see what all the fuss is about. Even baby boomers are getting on the band wagon.

The more competition, the more awareness, the more market penetration, the more people will start buying, and so the overall customer base increases.

• You get more creative

Because there are so many other people out there creating the same types of products, you have to start thinking creatively about how you can differentiate yourself from the others. 

You may identify a smaller sub-niche that ties in with your values and interests, and then focus exclusively on that niche. More money is made in a sub-niche than trying to cater for the general market.

• Customers get better customer service

If a customer is not happy with a particular product range, they will go elsewhere to find what they want. 

That may lead them to YOU. 

The flip side of that is if you are not providing the best possible service to your customer, they are going to go somewhere else. This forces you to step up your game and make your customers the primary focus.

• Helps you identify potential threats to your business

If you are not regularly checking out the competitions products and services, then you should be.

The purpose is not to steal their ideas, but they may highlight where you can improve or even do something better than them.

• Prevents you from getting complacent

Recently Ingram Spark made an announcement about removing all low content books off their distribution platform.

Everyone had a little panic attack because of the potential effect it could have on their books on Amazon. 

Now we have no idea what Amazon will do in the future, but you can be assured that they will always make changes to their platform. Not to benefit the authors, but THEIR customers. Their only responsibility is to give their customers the best possible shopping experience.

They owe us NOTHING. 

The question is; What are your successful competitors doing? Are they panicking or are they quietly looking at alternatives to prevent themselves from being totally reliant on Amazon?

• Your competitors are not your enemy

There is an incredible power in collaboration and partnership. I have several business partners in different projects and yet technically, they are all my competitors. We all target the same market, both in the business-to-business, and business-to-consumer markets.

Let me give you a practical and relevant example. I just recently released our “Digital Planner Bonanza” training course that teaches people how to create digital planners in PowerPoint and then sell them on Etsy.

Shawn Hansen is also releasing a similar course at the end of March. I had several people emailing asking me which course would be best for them.

My answer?

Without a doubt, BOTH!

Why? Because YOU as a customer are going to get the best of both training programs. Heck I am even going to get her course because I always learn something from Shawn.

Shawn sent me a few messages stating she was getting the same type of questions and I am going to quote her words as a reply to this question:

“Di and I have been in the same space (Publishing, Low-Content, PLR) for YEARS, and we’ve ALWAYS done things in a similar-but-divergent fashion, NATURALLY.

When two people study a market independently, conceive an idea about how it can be improved or made more understandable, and then work at turning that idea into training, there are ALWAYS going to be similarities AND differences.

During ALL of that time, I can’t think of a single place our overlapping content has been anything BUT complementary.

This is going to be the same.”

There is not a single industry in the entire world that does not have competition, but it has not stopped people from making fortunes.

So please stop worrying about competition, and just focus on building the best possible business for yourself.

You can do this!