Rethink your competitive strategy

- How could your biggest competitor put you completely out of business? You know, the most successful companies prevent this from happening by going on offense, strategically bulletproofing their business by shoring up weaknesses before their competitors even know they exist. Want to know how they do it? They kill their company. Here's how it works. Imagine that you are your number one competitor now. Analyze your business as if you were them and try to make your company, your product, your services completely irrelevant. This is the moment to look at your business with ruthless honesty and look at your sales approach. Gaps in marketing, outdated processes. Where are you really vulnerable to attack? By thinking like your competition, you can proactively identify weaknesses and threats and fix them. For example, if your competitor might target a market you are overlooking, consider products for that market. If your competitor is innovating faster than you allocate funds towards building a stronger innovation pipeline. Killing your company is the perfect exercise to do before strategic planning starts because it opens up people's eyes to what really needs to change, and it gives them a safe way to voice their concerns. Kill the company lets you shift from defense to offense and it lets you anticipate potential threats and turn them into strengths.