Avoid comparisons

One of the aspects that can put the most pressure on first-time entrepreneurs is constantly comparing ourselves with our competitors or with other entrepreneurs. Comparisons at the entrepreneurial level are not only unhealthy, but also unfair. The conditions in which one company develops differ completely from the conditions in which another one develops, that is why you should avoid comparisons and focus on your own results and actions. Your bottom line is not measured by the results of your competitors; it is your personal performance, the way you manage your business and the special conditions that affect it that will define the speed at which it progresses.

In this guide we will be addressing the issue of comparisons and the importance of avoiding them in order to focus on our own personal progress and results.

Comparisons are not fair

The first basic reason why you should avoid making any kind of comparisons with your company is because comparisons are not fair.

Each company has grown and developed with its own conditions, responding to the moment in which the market was, the support received and the random circumstances that play their role as luck.

Comparing our company with another can make us lose perspective of the value of the results we have achieved, because when we see that our results are not similar or are inferior to those of the company with which we are comparing ourselves, we can become discouraged and feel frustrated when we do not really know the real conditions under which this company has developed.

It doesn't matter if both companies respond to the same industry and market, there are a series of elements that cannot be measured and that escape our statistics, so the smartest thing to do is to measure ourselves according to our personal results.

Pay attention to your personal progress

To measure the progress of your company, the best thing to do is to pay attention to your personal results; keeping statistics and control of your results will be the best indicator to know if you are progressing or not. You should not be affected by the fact that your competition is performing better than you, as long as your company's results improve, what your competition does does not have to affect you.

The study of the competition as a strategy is valid. All large companies carry out studies on the results of their competitors, this is done to know what portion of the market is currently being taken by rival companies, and to devise effective strategies in order to get ahead of them. The problem lies in wanting to take these studies as an indication of our development, as long as you study your competition and are able to establish the independence between their results and yours, you will be acting intelligently.

Studying the competition

As we said earlier, studying the competition and comparing yourself with it are two very different things. When we study the competition we seek to obtain data that are valuable for our company and thus be able to plan our strategies in order to take some advantage in the market.

The study of the competition also seeks to detect the most pronounced mistakes and successes of this, to use them in our favor. It is not wrong to learn from your competitors or even try to imitate them in some process or another, you just have to be careful to keep the right distance so as not to fall into the bias of believing that they share the same conditions and therefore can aspire to the same results by performing similar actions.