It’s Time For Real Estate Investors To Embrace The Competition

As a real estate investor, you should be begging for more competition. Here’s why:

Is more competition what many real estate agents, investment firms, and brokerages need? Should independent real estate pros and CEOs be craving more, rather than less, competition?

Many in the real estate industry wish they had a monopoly, with no competition. Some believe they already have a monopoly, when, in reality, they don’t. Others spend their nights, weekends, and much of their days plotting how to beat the competition. Many invest a lot into doing so. Sometimes they expend more energy and money than building up their own business. So why on earth would you want more competition?

Do you want to be the best? Fulfill your maximum potential? Serve others as much as possible? If so, competition can help. Competition forces you to be better at what you do.

If you don’t feel that you have a lot of competition, there may be nothing else motivating you to do better. This is one of the main reasons we’ve seen such stagnant and horrific customer service in recent years. However, whether anyone feels it or not, there is always competition in the works. This is the biggest fear of companies like Google, and Apple and Facebook. It is what keeps them up at night, keeps them striving to innovate every day, and keeps them buying up every potential threat. They love it, they thrive on it, and they know it makes them better, but they also take it seriously.

3 Ways to Force Competition & Improvement

1. Many popular business leaders are known for having a nemesis. Those executives at the top of the game love having a peer to duel with. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were a prime example. It doesn’t have to get out of control, and there is no reason that when rivalry becomes counterproductive you can’t actually collaborate. Remember, “iron sharpens iron.” So who might make a friendly rival?
2. Make others make moves. How about igniting some competition? Make bold statements in the media. Announce big new plans or goals. Announce how you plan to disrupt the industry and dominate. That ought to ruffle some feathers and get somebody to shake the dust off and pick up the gauntlet.
3. We are now in the sharing economy, and investors are demanding more transparency than ever. What if you shared more about what you were doing that was working and how you were helping others? Now you know that ,while the extra PR can help, someone might try to replicate some of those things. That means you’ll have to immediately begin thinking about what you’ll do next, and how you’ll do even better than you were.

Tips for Beating the Competition

Just because competitor can be great for keeping your edge sharp and improving the industry for everyone it touches, doesn’t mean you want it to bite you back too hard. So what are some ways to best the competition?

1. Control your expenses better than the competition so that your margins are better
2. Make the competition spend in the wrong direction
3. Make sure you aren’t taking on competitors you can’t beat
4. Hire the competition’s best talent
5. Buy them out if they prove to be really good
6. Lock up market share and vendors with strategic partnerships
7. Starve the competition out of deals and cash flow
8. Build a bigger war chest for jumping on the best opportunities
9. Schedule regular strategy sessions to spark innovation and constantly tweak