Your competitors are looking at you.

Makes sense that you should be looking at them.

Following their every move.

But once you know what they’re doing, how do you use that information?

Should you copy their strategies? Would they even make sense for your business?

I was watching an interview with Shaquille O’Neal, and he started telling this story about playing for his high school’s team…

Mid game Shaq’s dad, who was watching from the side of the court, starts yelling: “Call a timeout!”.

After a while, Shaq calls the timeout, only to hear his dad shout “What are you doing?!”.

Shaq tells him he’s trying out Dr. J.’s (Julius Erving) finger roll shot…

!!SMACK!!

His dad stops him in his tracks with a slap on the face and says “There’s no Dr. J., BE SHAQ!”.

In other words, he wasn’t playing to his uniqueness and strengths, but merely trying to imitate someone else.

Chances are you do it too. We all do it at some point, that’s how we learn what to do and what not to do, what works and what doesn’t.

We start doing it from the moment we’re out of the womb.

But you’d be wise to remember that just because someone else does something, it doesn’t mean you should be doing it too.

You have unique strengths you should emphasize and weaknesses that you should either get rid of, or mitigate.

The secret to strong positioning and messaging is pinpointing your unique angle, or way of doing things, and state it in a way your audience resonates with.

Not to copy your competitors.

Study them, know what they do and how, but don’t simply imitate them.

I’m always trying to brainstorm new ways of doing things, starting with my content.

Have 30 seconds? I’d love to know what could be valuable to you.

You can quickly let me know here.