Business Jujitsu: thinking on your feet.

Jujitsu applies the principle of using an attacker’s energy against him, rather than directly opposing it. It’s a great principle… and a great business practice. (Although a Gi is probably not the best thing to wear to a breakfast meeting.)

There’s much to be gained from looking at, and learning from, your business competitors. Jason Fried, co-founder of Basecamp, says “learning from failure is overrated”, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn and improve your performance from the failures of others.

Watch your competitors. See how they approach their marketing. Are they doing anything that you should be doing? Or something you definitely shouldn’t? Are their websites easier to navigate? Does the site support their services or sales conversions more seamlessly than yours?

By knowing what they do well, and what they do badly, you’re in a better position to develop your own business, without having to reinvent the wheel.

Some key questions to ask are:

• Who are your competitors?
• In what ways do you actually compete?
• What are the similarities – and the differences – between you and them?
• What are their strengths and weaknesses? (You’ll already know yours!)
• Are they introducing any new products?
• What makes your business unique?

This may sound a bit simplistic, but doing the analysis well is an important ingredient to doing better business: it will help you to define what sets you apart from the rest, where you can improve and, perhaps, where you might have to change direction completely.

So, embrace Jujitsu principles for your business… we’d be happy to get you started on learning a few moves.