The Competitor Comparison Table

I got this one from Twitter…

An incredibly clever way to make a huge impact in a short amount of time.

Here's what makes this simple action so powerful:

Everyone knows this should be done. Everyone assumes "someone must be doing this".

Yet, not one did it. Not recently at least.

It's not a lot of work to do it, and it'll instantly position you as:

• An expert on the differentiation your company/product has

• A proactive team member that does useful things beyond the scope of their work

• A high-level, strategic person who focuses on top-management issues

In the tweet, Gergely frames it as something new team members would do. You don't have to be one to do this – it's just his experience. Even if you're at your job for years, you can pull off this trick and reap the benefits.

On the unreasonable effectiveness of benchmarking

This simple technique is basically what's usually called benchmarking.

So let's talk about that.

Now, first the elephant in the room: people who say benchmarking isn't good "because it's just copying competitors, it doesn't generate true innovation".

Bullshit.

For two reasons.

Reason #1 is that you're not blindly copying everything – you're just raising awareness of where your company/product stands and how your customers, who probably interact with your competitors as well, perceive you.

Reason #2 is that you can adapt this technique… Don't want to benchmark against competitors? Do so against leading companies in similar industries. Or do internal benchmarking (e.g. comparing different products/stores of your own company).

So, what makes benchmarking so effective?

You're basically piggybacking on thousands of hours of other people's work. Even better, other people from other companies!

Think about it: whatever other companies have implemented, they have spent hundreds or thousands of hours thinking about, testing, and tweaking the details.

You get to see the end result of that.

Of course, you need to apply some judgment on top of it, but that's what a high-level look at a comparison table will help you and your team with.

Packaging matters

So far, I'm not saying anything mindblowing.

Everyone's heard of benchmarking.

What's implicit (and brilliant) in the tweet is the packaging.

You're not creating a huge benchmarking report when no one asked you to do it…

… You're simply creating a highly synthesized comparison table.

It's a distilled view, the kind of thing a high-level executive would appreciate looking at.

And unlike what the tweet implies, you don't need to just focus on product comparison.

(The tweet gives big software PM vibes, which makes sense given Gergely's background.)

You can do it with:

• Websites

• Social media feeds

• Onboarding flows

• Sales calls

• Customer support

• Balance sheets

• Advertising channels and campaigns

• Hiring practices

Anything that's relevant to your project or job, really.

But there's one important thing: You need to TRY IT OUT.

For it to make a great impression and position you as an expert on what you did, you need direct experience. Try the products out. Go through the whole sales/onboarding/support flow. Screenshot and record everything.

The rest of your team probably knows the differences between you and your competitors in the abstract, but touching base with reality makes a BIG difference in this exercise.

At a minimum, you'll find nothing new but show you're not just doing the grunt work, but thinking about what should be done.

And sometimes you'll find some big gap between what your team is doing and what it should do. This might change the direction of everyone's work (for the best) and you'll be the one who sparked that change.

What a way to stand out, isn't it?

Today's tip is not for everyone. You may not be at the exact time of your job to create something like this.

But someday you will, and it's nice to have this trick in your back pocket for when it is a highly leveraged move in your career.

Keep working smarter.