When we work alone, away from the constant prying eyes of colleagues and supervisors, we tend to lose our competitive edge. I’ve noticed this in myself, too. I haven’t exactly been slacking off or taking my work for granted, but I feel like something’s missing — as if with a bit more push I can get a better, more inspired output. Here’s why:

Competition keeps you on top of your game. Research on social facilitation seems to back up the idea that having an “audience” competing with your or simply observing your work may boost performance. This effect appears to be more pronounced in smaller groups and if performance is tracked individually.

For more complex tasks, though, competition might end up impairing your work because of the distraction involved. Because of this, it helps to find out the depth and amount of competition that would be helpful to your performance.

Competition reminds you of what makes you different. Apart from focusing on your own performance, you also tend to assess the abilities of your competitor. You’ll try to look for the skills and qualities you have that will stand out from the usual criteria that supervisors and clients are looking for. While everyone else presents relatively the same level of skill, pricing, and schedule, you’ll need to identify what’s unique about your services. Once you identify this, you need to work on how to bring it out and enhance it even further.

Competition may lead to collaboration. While this may sound antithetical, in my experience a healthy amount of competition can help expose your weaknesses and strengths as much as your competitors’. If you find a way to work together, you can help compensate each others’ weaknesses and build on both your strengths. For example, I’ve teamed up with another blogger who has skills I lack (Internet marketing, business building). It’s been one of the most educational collaborations I’ve had.

• Freelancers should use some of their downtime to check out the track record and portfolios of their competitors. For employees, examine the habits and performance of the colleagues you admire. How is their approach different from yours? What can you learn from each other?
• Look for other people working in the same field or niche as you do and collaborate on a small project together.
• Review your business or performance statistics from last year. How do you think you’re doing so far? Sometimes you only have to look at yourself to find an ideal competitor.

When we think about competition, we shouldn’t associate it with things like playing dirty or focusing too much on the work of other people. If approached in the right way, a competition — no matter how informal — can help us work better.

How do you stay competitive when you work independently? Does competition affect how productive you are?

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After I’d nearly come to the end of my rope, I was asked why I didn’t just cut some corners with some of my projects. My immediate gut instinct was to refuse that option, and I had to step back for a bit to reflect on why I was so against the idea. Was I seeking the unattainable — perfection — or was it something else?

I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t seeking perfection. Although there have definitely been times along the way where I got too wrapped up in minor details and perfectionism, I’ve gotten to a point where I can quickly recognize that in myself and quit while I’m ahead. No, it wasn’t that I was seeking perfection, but excellence.

Certain parts of my business are what I’m increasingly becoming known for, and if I hope to continue standing out in these areas, I have to continue to seek excellence, and to me, excellence is not the same as perfection.

Perfection is not attainable, and chasing it is pointless. Excellence, on the other hand, means not letting yourself off the hook, not cutting corners where it counts, and not copping out. It’s about being extraordinary, which, as Steve Harvey says, requires doing extra. Extra isn’t always easy.

If you want to be a cut above your competition, the go-to expert in your field, and the name that stands out in the minds of your customers and clients, then you have to strive for excellence. You have to know when you’re giving too much attention to things that don’t really matter and when you need to give extra attention to those that do.

How do you maintain a higher standard for what counts, while letting go of the need to perfect what doesn’t?

Photo by Flickr user indywriter, licensed under CC 2.0

1. Don’t rush your customers. Pouncing on them as soon as they arrive is not enticing to customers and can come across as a bit desperate. Give them space to consider their purchase. Stay accessible, but don’t smother them.
2. Don’t hound your customers. Give them room after they leave to evaluate their options. A phone call or email a day is fine, but don’t go overboard (calling an hour after they leave the showroom is a bit excessive).
3. Don’t argue with your customers. You obviously have strong opinions for and against certain features relating to your product, but if your customers have opposing opinions, it’s best to disagree respectfully — and gently.
4. Don’t downgrade the competition. Berating your competitors won’t win you any points. By showing respect for the competition, you demonstrate a quiet confidence in your own product.
5. Listen to your customers. Are you paying attention to what your customers are saying? Are you listening to what’s important to them? Be fully present and listen to the needs, desires and frustrations that your customers are sharing. This is invaluable when it comes to fitting the right product with each person, and the ability to recall minor preferences is even more impressive.
6. Focus on your customer’s needs, not yours. This may be surprising, but the customer doesn’t care about your bottom line. They’re not worried about making this work so that you benefit. They don’t care about your timetable either. Instead of worrying about your needs, focus all your effort and attention on doing an exceptional job.
7. Don’t be condescending. Don’t patronize your customers. Consider the possibility that they may have actually done their homework and know what they’re talking about. Your customers understand that you have “inside” knowledge, but don’t talk down to them or be dismissive. It’s insulting, and that alone could cost you the sale.
8. Know what you’re talking about (and find the correct answers when you don’t). Here’s an example. I went into one dealership this week and had settled on colors for the interior and exterior. When I went to another dealership, they said that color combination wasn’t available. (Yes, it was. I had seen the car myself.) It turns out that the combo was available, but the person relaying the incorrect information knew that they’d have to get it from the company’s other dealership, which was an hour away. That’s three strikes. One of salesmen didn’t know the facts about his own vehicles and suggested that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and the other lied for the company’s benefit.
9. Don’t just say what you think customers want to hear. “What? You need a certain price? No problem. We can do that.” Yet when the customer shows up with checkbook in hand, that price no longer exists. Puffing and bluffing isn’t going to impress your customers, and if you’re only trying to appease them, eventually that will surface, leaving customers feeling very frustrated with you.
10. Shoot straight. If you can’t do something, you can’t do it. Period. Say so. Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Be direct and upfront and never skirt the truth.
11. Communicate clearly. Go over things slowly and carefully (and then go over them again). Be thorough and detailed with your responses to avoid misunderstandings.
12. Stay cool under pressure. When you’re dealing with other people’s money, there will inevitably be tension. Proceed with caution. Take breaks. Take a few breaths. Keep things in perspective and consider the other side. Do not, under any circumstance, lose your composure. Talking too quickly or loudly and seeming frustrated or agitated will only risk evoking the same response from customers.
13. Keep your promises. Call when you say you’re going to call. Have what you say you have. Do what you say you’re going to do.
14. Know what’s really going to impress customers. Take cars, for instance. Customers want the best in safety, and a good-looking car with low gas mileage is important, but what about reliability and how about some proof? Rather than going on and on about how super awesome your brand new cars are (they better be), show me one with 500k miles on it that’s still rolling. Paying $30k seems much more appealing when I can think about driving that car for twenty years.
15. Make things easy on your customers. In general, making a big purchase (buying a car, hiring a VA, etc.) can be a stressful experience, so find ways to make things as easy and painless as possible for customers.

I have not been impressed with three-fourths (or more) of the salespeople I’ve come across this week, and if things don’t get better quickly, I might be the customer who simply drives her car to 500k miles — that’s the final lesson. I actually had a salesman tell me that their goal is to wear customers down, until we eventually give up and give in. I will, but it won’t be the way they expect. I’ll go home and keep rolling in my faithful car, because they forget (or weren’t listening when I told them) that I work from home.

So, Lesson #16, don’t treat your customers as opponents to be beat. If you do, they’ll eventually think of you that way, too, and eventually move on to someone who’ll work with them instead of against them.

I’m amazed at the treatment I’ve received this week from car dealers, but it’s made me appreciate exceptional customer service even more. How do you ensure that your customers are impressed rather than appalled?

Image from Flickr by thebig429

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“The simple act of comparing yourself against someone else can stoke the fires of competition. When there are just a few competitors around, making such comparisons is easy but they become more difficult when challengers are plentiful. As a result, the presence of extra contenders, far from spurring us on by adding extra challenge, can actually have the opposite effect. Garcia and Avishalom call this the “N-effect” and they demonstrated it through a number of experiments.” – Ed Yong

Many of us are freelance consultants, and I chose to go the freelance route before the economy took a turn for the worse. In the past few months, I’ve seen more and more people being laid off as a result of corporate downsizing or startups that have closed their doors under the current economic pressures. With full-time gigs becoming more and more difficult to find, many of these people are turning to freelancing and consulting to pay the bills while they continue their search for another full-time job. In a previous post about unemployment, the economic downturn, and web working, I talked a little more about this trend with a few numbers to back up my assumptions.

I’m starting to wonder about the impact of this new influx of freelancers. On the one hand, it seems like more companies are turning to freelancers to fill the gaps in their workforce during hiring freezes, but on the other, any large changes in a market are likely to have unanticipated side effects. After reading the study about motivation, I wonder how these new entrants will impact motivation to compete for freelancing jobs. More companies hiring freelancers could potentially drain motivation even if the chances of getting the contract are the same; however, I suspect that the number of people freelancing is probably exceeding the increase in freelancing jobs thus resulting in more competition and a reduced chance of success.

Keep in mind that the study was looking at motivation in student settings, not careers or job motivation, so the idea that the results may apply to freelancers competing for jobs is speculative, though reasonable, but it has given me food for thought.

What changes have you noticed in the freelancing market as a result of the economic downturn? How does your perception of competition affect what contracts you bid on and how you bid?

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On the one hand, it definitely generates healthy competition, and companies stand to win out in a big way when service providers and freelancers are openly vying for your dollar. We’ve looked at some examples in the past, like 99 designs, a site where designers enter competitions to win contracts.

InnoCentive has a different take on crowdsourcing.

Their focus is not as narrow or specific as that of 99 designs. Instead, they offer a broad reaching problem-solving approach. InnoCentive lets organizations create “Challenges” that “Problem Solvers” can then submit potential solutions to.

Challenges are organized both by discipline and by pavilion (targeted, sometimes sponsored challenges clustered around general issue sets), and are posted by clients, which are either private companies or not-for-profit organizations. Each Challenge listed features a brief summary, the reward, type, and deadline, and in most cases, the Challenge poster, referred to as Seekers throughout InnoCentive.

The rewards are tempting, and lend a Wild West vibe to the whole enterprise. Freelance web workers and consultants might find the amounts, and the freedom, a refreshing change from the usual CRM and RFP drudgery. It’s definitely a democratized system, especially at this early stage in its development. And with rewards ranging from $5,000 to $1,000,000, there’s money to be made. Partial awards are also available, at the discretion of Seeker organizations.

Downsides? As with all crowdsourcing ventures, the potential exists that you could put in lot of time and get little or no return. But there are apparently winners, and not infrequently either, as seen on their list of awarded challenges.

Awards seem to cluster around the physical and health sciences, but there are contracts available for IT, network, and design professionals as well. If you’re looking for a side project, or you’re confident you can compete internationally, InnoCentive might be the place for you.

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