Don’t Let Competition Blind You

By, The Curator

When you decide to make the jump into the world of business by starting your own clothing brand there is one factor that is guaranteed: there will always be a bigger fish. The clothing industry is extremely competitive and new brands are started daily all around the world. Some will last years, others will last days. Once your company begins to gain some traction and become more visible you are destined to run into some competition. The way you handle your new found adversaries plays a big role in making or breaking your business.

Create a Schedule

Although conceptually I don’t agree, I do acknowledge that it is crucial to occasionally keep tabs on your competition. However, that does not mean you should be checking in on them every single day. In fact that is dangerous and unhealthy for both you and your company.

Obsessively inspecting your adversaries business moves takes away from your own time and alters your mindset. Assuming your brand is in the earlier stages, you and your business are one and the same. If you are not on top of your game, then your business isn’t either. Eyeing your competition’s every move can cause a number of thoughts and feelings such as jealousy or the idea that you are not doing enough. Since you are spending so much time watching what they do, you aren’t putting as much time into your own moves which slows your brand down and makes others appear to be moving faster. If you get caught in this cycle all it will do is slow down the progress of your brand.

However, it is also important to have a general idea of what other clothing brands your size are up to though. This is why I recommend scheduling a time to check up on your competition. Checking every two weeks to a month should be your bare minimum, but I would recommend trying to check every month or two instead. Remember, you do not want to get caught in a cycle of constantly checking up on other similar brands so waiting longer is better.

Set a Timer

In addition to creating a schedule I would recommend setting a timer for each brand as well. Clearly it is up to you, but I would recommend something like five to ten minutes per company. That is more than enough time to skim through one brands social media accounts and website to see what is new. The presence of a timer also further enforces the idea of limiting the amount of time you spend looking at other brands.

Why it is Important to Stay in Your Own Lane

I touched on this a bit earlier in this post, but staying in your own lane and blocking out the competition is vital to your brands success and your business mindset. You need to be able to focus on yourself and your brand only. Obsessing over the growth of other brands is unhealthy because it can cause feelings of jealousy and anger which throw you off your game. Many claim that seeing others doing better than them is motivation and makes them hungrier to succeed. Yes that can be true in the sense that you want to succeed even more, but that logic is flawed when it comes down to the reasons. You want to succeed more when you see other businesses doing better than you because you want to be better than them. This harms your brand because it transforms the goal of making your brand as successful as it can be, to making your brand more successful than the one you are constantly looking at. You no longer are focused on making decisions that are beneficial for your business overall because you only want to make decisions that will make your brand appear better than the other. Your goals shift and you risk taking your brand in a direction you did not originally plan to, just to be “better” or “equal” to your competition. What motivates you to grind and grow your brand should be internal, not external.

Know Your Place and Stay Focused

In the end of the day there is a space in the industry for every brand. As J Cole says in his song Love Yourz:

Always gon’ be a whip that’s better than the the one you got

Always gon’ be some clothes that’s fresher than the one’s you rock

Always gon’ be a b!tch that’s badder out there on the tours

But you ain’t never gon’ be happy till you love yours

There will always be a brand that is bigger and better than yours. Whether it is a small brand while you are on the come up, or a brand like Supreme if you make it to that level. Getting caught up comparing yourself to something else will only throw your business off track and hurt your mindset. As Gucci Mane would say, you get “lost in the sauce”. You never want to get lost in the sauce, which is why you should stay in your lane and focus exclusively on your own brand.