The Transcript

A Different Way To Think About Your Online Competition

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You are listening to The Digital Entrepreneur. The show for folks who want to discover smarter ways to create and sell profitable digital goods and services. This podcast is a production of Digital Commerce Institute, the place to be for digital entrepreneurs. For more information go to Rainmaker.FM/DigitalCommerce. That’s Rainmaker.FM/DigitalCommerce.

Sean Jackson: Welcome to The Digital Entrepreneur, everyone. I am your host, Sean Jackson. I’m joined, as always, by the eclectic Jessica Frick. Jessica, how the Frick are you today?

Jessica Frick: I am eclectic, Sean. How the Jackson are you?

Sean Jackson: Very good. I got a new thesaurus, so I’m going to try new names.

Jessica Frick: Oh boy.

Sean Jackson: Oh boy.

Jessica Frick: Oh boy, it’s on now.

Sean Jackson: We left last week’s episode with the question of the week, which is this: How much is too much competitive research? Obviously you’re going to do some of it if you’re an online entrepreneur, but how much is too much? Jess, what do you say? Should you do a lot of it, a little of it, or none at all? What do you say?

Jessica Frick: I think you need to do a lot of it. Obviously you can’t focus all of your attention on it, but I don’t think you should ever really take your eye off of the game.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, I understand that. But here’s the thing though — if you’re a small business guy or gal, your time is probably the most valuable asset that you have, and you never have enough of it. There’s only 24 hours in the day, that’s it. If you are spending too much time worrying or looking at what other people do, don’t you think there’s a tendency to start to morph into meeting what your competition is doing and not trying to concentrate on your unique proposition by yourself?

Jessica Frick: Well, I can see how being untainted with your view of your product could certainly help you be unique. But if you don’t know what’s in the market and perhaps what’s failed or why, or what the market even is asking for, how could you possibly know whether a) you’re unique, and b) whether you’ve really got something you want to put your weight behind?

A New Way of Thinking About Competition

Sean Jackson: Yeah. Maybe it’s a matter of semantics. Competitive research, to me, implies this concept of, “I have a competitor out there. I’m going to be watching them diligently and I’m going to be meeting them step by step by step.” As opposed to — and I’ll throw out a new idea — alternative research. We have alternative facts. If we have alternative facts, we can have alternative research, right?

Jessica Frick: Oh boy. Oh Jeez. Okay, so what is alternative research, Sean?

Sean Jackson: Alternative research is this concept of, “What are the alternatives to my product or service that are available out there?” Not, “Who is my competition?” per se, but, “What are the alternatives that I’m competing against?” Maybe people are using a very simple Excel spreadsheet to do their job. That’s an alternative to what you’re doing, that’s not a competitor. You’re not going to compete against Microsoft, for goodness sakes, but it is an alternative to what is out there.

So maybe, as part of your normal work week, thinking about what are the alternatives that people are turning to, and then looking at that as a way to understand your audience better. While at the same time realizing that those alternatives have competing factors that you may be able to address. What do you think of that?

Jessica Frick: I think that’s really smart. I think the message here is, “Don’t try to keep up with the Jones’, but know why you’re better than the Jones’.”

Sean Jackson: Don’t ignore them either. That’s right. I think that comes down to it. I look at competitive research, and I’ve seen companies that have actually gotten so fixated on it that they’re trying to match feature for feature, or they’re trying to play … They get pulled off of their messaging and start to morph into their competition’s messaging, which pretty much makes them indifferent — not indifferent, what is it?

Jessica Frick: Yeah.

Sean Jackson: Non-differential in the marketplace.

Jessica Frick: Yep. Master of none.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, exactly. So I think there’s a balance. But I do think you are correct. You need to be keenly aware of the ecosystem. What is happening there? What is going on? What are people looking at doing? That could be a direct competitor — a product or service that is literally targeting you — or it could be, “Hey, people are figuring out some other way to accomplish what they want.” That’s the alternative that they are using. Knowing that may make your product better if you can make that alternative not so attractive.

Jessica Frick: I think that — what you just said — is airtight. I got nothing.

Sean Jackson: Oh wow. I finally got one right? Oh my gosh, Jess. It only took us so many episodes for me to be right about something. Holy cow! I feel so special.

Jessica Frick: Yeah. Nailed it.

Sean Jackson: So, now that I’ve won one, Jess. Let’s do this. Let’s talk about who we have on the show today. Because we have a very special guest coming up in the next segment.
Who is that, Jess?

Jessica Frick: We have Jon Henshaw from Raven Tools and now TapClicks.

Sean Jackson: Exactly, and Jon, I think, understands this idea of competitive research. He created up a product that was a leader in its space. Where many people came in and copied him, etc. He has gone through the trials and tribulations of being the only person, to having tons of people — what that did to his business, where it led him, and what he learned from it.

When we get back from the break, Jess and I are going to be interviewing Jon Henshaw from Raven Tools — a very close friend of ours — about how he thought — and thinks — about competitive research in the technology space. You won’t want to miss this, so stay tuned.

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Sean Jackson: Welcome back from the break, everyone. Jessica, we have on today’s show, a good friend to both of us, actually, our good buddy, Jon Henshaw. Will you please introduce Jon Henshaw, The Awesome One, to our amazing audience?

Jessica Frick: The Awesome One, and of course the All-American water polo player.

Sean Jackson: Oh, good one.

Jessica Frick: I know, but I do have a much better intro. Jon is the director of digital marketing and product evangelist for TapClicks and Raven Tools. Big news there, TapClicks and Raven Tools. He is the co-founder of Raven Internet Marketing Tools, an online marketing management and reporting platform that was recently acquired by TapClicks. He has lived all over the world, and is most certainly a subject-matter expert and one heck of an awesome guy. Jon Henshaw.

Jon Henshaw: Awww. That’s the greatest intro I think I’ve ever had. I want you to introduce me as “The Awesome One” to my kids. I want to see how they react.

Sean Jackson: More importantly, to his wife actually. She wouldn’t even know who that is.

Jon Henshaw: Right. She’d be like, “What? Who are you and why are you saying that?”

Sean Jackson: Hey, Jon, thank you. Thank you for being on the show, man. Really appreciate it.

Jon Henshaw: Thanks for having me.

Why Being One of the First in a Market Can Be a Challenge

Sean Jackson: So let’s get into this, Jon. Your story is fascinating to me, insofar as what you did with Raven. I got into SEO back around 2006ish, 2007, and Raven was at all of these SEO conferences that I kept attending. It was great because Raven was the only person there with a suite of tools that were designed for the SEO space at the time. Your story is fairly interesting. While you were the first ones, you weren’t the only one. Tell us a little bit about how that was — to be one of the first out of the gate — and the metamorphosis that occurred over the years.

Jon Henshaw: Well, it’s interesting, because being first out of the gate is both a blessing and a curse. It’s the type of thing where you’re definitely getting attention for what you’re doing, because you essentially were in a position of innovating. If nobody’s done it before, you’re basically innovating. You are creating something that nobody has yet.

At the same time, when you’re the first person doing it, it’s not exactly the best. It’s just the best we had at the time. When we first launched it, it was not good, and people told us. We actually took it into a private beta after that. The reason why was because we had some big agencies both in the U.S. and the UK. They saw what we were doing. They needed it, and they didn’t want to build it themselves because it was complex, what we were doing. They were basically like, “If you will work with us, we will help you in what we need,” as far as … We had a few problems we still weren’t solving for them, so they worked with us to help them solve those problems.

After about six to nine months, we re-launched it and that ended up being successful. That’s even a good piece of information for anybody trying to enter a space and to do something where maybe there isn’t a solution there yet. That is, you’re going to get the best product when you work really closely with the people who need that product. That was really what set us on a good foot and made us, I would say, successful — particularly for the first several years.

Sean Jackson: Right. I think that’s an interesting part and a good story. You were coming into the SEO space when it still had a big black hat or black box mystique around it. It was this very unique art form, etc. You were one of the first people to put all of these tools into a suite that people could use to manage their online marketing, specifically in the search marketing space. But there was a downside to all this, Jon. Because you were the first one, you had to focus and make it better. Then you released it out there and everybody starts saying, “Wow. Raven Tools, Raven Tools, Raven Tools,” But then something happened along the way, which is …

Jon Henshaw: Competition.

Sean Jackson: Exactly. Which is the whole point of today’s show.

Jon Henshaw: Was I supposed to answer that?

Sean Jackson: Yes, you were. You did. That had to drive you crazy. Here you are, small guys in Tennessee coming out with this tool, and everyone’s finally raving about Raven Tools. You got it working, and then every day it seems like there’s somebody new. Talk about that.

Jon Henshaw: Well, it was interesting at first. When it’s such a small field of players everybody knows about each other. Back then, we would really know about our competitors because there weren’t that many people to look for or look at. On top of that, if you’re very competitive, like I am, you’re always going, “What are they doing?” and trying to second guess what their next move’s going to be. “What do they mean by that particular blog or press release?” That type of thing. You drive yourself crazy.

That is okay, particularly when it’s a small field and everybody’s innovating, because it keeps you innovating at a very quick pace. The same is true for them. What you do, then they’ll do, and then the other person will do something. But I would say, as the market matures in that area and you start to get more people, it’s not really sustainable. As you start to expand what you do …

In other words, if you’re constantly innovating, then you’re most likely making new tools and new features, then another tool, and then a new feature — which was generally the case with us and especially those early competitors. Then you get to a point where you can’t live like that. I think for us, we started to want to make our own path and have our own vision. I remember where we started with SEO. I had this vision of, “Oh, I want to be more than SEO now,” There was a whole, “We could go way down this path, and we can do social and we could do paid,” that type of thing. The other people we were competing with earlier on started to go down another path, and that seemed like a really good idea at the time.

It seemed like that would help us remain competitive and make us unique and different, but something along the way happened that I didn’t see coming — some of this is from lack of experience — that was the bigger you want to get and the more that you want to do, it opens up opportunities for new competitors to come in and take a piece of your pie. What I saw that started to happen was — there were people who would go, “You know what? That’s a really awesome tool that...