188. Capitalize on Your Competitors' Blind Spots

What if the key to standing out wasn’t about doing things better than your competitors, but about focusing on what they’re not doing at all? 

In this episode, I’m sharing a personal story from my college swimming days where trying too hard to beat the competition led me to make a costly mistake—and a crucial lesson in marketing strategy.

You’ll hear about reverse benchmarking, a concept from U.K. marketer Rory Sutherland, and how it helped one restaurant redefine their service by focusing on what others were neglecting. Instead of copying what others were doing best, they leaned into what wasn’t being done—and turned it into their competitive advantage.

I’ll also share how I’ve applied this strategy to Mic Drop Moments, my video marketing service, to serve clients who are being underserved by the market. This approach has allowed me to carve out a unique space in a crowded industry and help clients get visible without competing on the same tired strategies.

So if you’re tired of following the herd and want a more strategic way to stand out, this episode will give you a fresh perspective on how to rethink your approach and make your competition irrelevant.

Resources

Build your brand on social media effortlessly: Learn more about Mic Drop Moments

If you're the best-kept secret in your industry, it's time to change that.

Because when you start showing up with clarity, confidence, and the right content—your ideal clients won't just notice you. They'll choose you.

Don’t miss your chance to get a free video brand assessment to start creating videos that actually work for your business.

Schedule your video brand assessment here >

Thanks for tuning in. If you found this episode helpful, share it with another expert entrepreneur who’s ready to stop blending in.

And I’ll see you next time—on The Standout Business Show.

Episode Transcript

Brad Powell (00:06):
What if the key to standing out wasn't about doing
things better than yourcompetitors, but about doing
things that they're not doing atall?
In today's episode, I'm sharinga personal story of how
focusing on the wrong thing costme a race and how that lesson
led me to a powerful marketingstrategy that you can start

(00:28):
using today.
Welcome back to the StandoutBusiness Show.
I'm your host, brad Powell, andin today's solo episode, I'm
diving into a concept that'sbeen an absolute game changer
for my business capitalizing onyour competitors' blind spots

(00:48):
and I'm going to share a storyfrom my college swimming days
where focusing too much on thecompetition not only caused me
to lose a race, but actually getdisqualified.
But it wasn't just the loss ofthe race that taught me a lesson
.
It was how I shifted my focusthat ultimately led to a

(01:09):
breakthrough strategy.
We're going to explore thepower of reverse benchmarking.
This is a term coined by an OGmarketer from the UK named Rory
Sutherland, and how onerestaurant used it to stand out
by focusing on what othersweren't doing.
So if you find yourself lookingover your shoulder and copying

(01:30):
what everyone else is doing andwant a more strategic way to
stand out, this episode is foryou.
Let's dive into it.
So it was the end of my firstyear in college.
I'm a freshman, I'm on theswimming team and now it's time
for the conference championship,where all of the swimming teams

(01:53):
from Eastern Canada gathered tocompete, and my best race was
the 50-yard freestyle.
Now, all year long, I've beenswimming, and winning, and
swimming and winning, and everytime I swam I got a little bit
faster.
And here at the conferencechampionship I was up against
last year's champion, the guywho had won the year before.

(02:16):
In fact, he'd won the previousthree years.
And now this is my chance torace him, and up until now we
had never had a chance tocompete.
So I was determined I'm goingto beat this guy.
We're at the blocks, the starterhas his gun.
You know they have a blank gunthat they shoot.
He goes, take your marks and weall bend over.

(02:37):
I'm just sitting there going.
I'm going to beat this guy.
I'm going to beat this guy.
I'm going to beat this guy andgoing to beat this guy.
I'm going to beat this guy, andall of a sudden he takes off
and then the gun goes off andabout three or four of us,
including me, all jumped.
We all dove in the water and ifyou dive in the water it
doesn't matter whether you wentbefore or after the gun goes off
, but if somebody jumps likethis, you all get a count of

(02:59):
jumping the gun.
So the good news is you get twotries.
So we got called back, got backup on the blocks, starters
there again saying take yourmarks, I'm bending over, I'm
going, I'm going to beat thisguy, I'm going to beat this guy.
And the guy next to me, hemoved his hands sideways like
this, but he didn't go.
And, out of my peripheralvision, I saw that movement and

(03:22):
I said go.
And I, just off the block and Iall by myself, soared out over
the water and I thought, oh no,this is it.
And I dove in and I had jumpedtwice, which meant I was
disqualified, which meant that Iwasn't even going to get to
race this guy.
Not only did I lose, but Ididn't even get to compete.

(03:45):
It was so frustrating.
It was awful I didn't win thatrace.
Big lesson here is don't payattention to what your
competition is up to.
Pay attention to what you cando in your own race.
This was like something I hadto learn.
Let's apply this to business,and I was listening to a podcast

(04:10):
just a couple of weeks ago andthis marketer who's had a long,
successful career his name isRory Sutherland and he was
talking about something that hecalls reverse benchmarking.
Now in the marketing world,there's this term, benchmarking
that most marketing agencies usewhen they go out and study the

(04:30):
marketplace and they benchmarkwhat the competition, what the
rest of the marketplace is doing, and the strategy is to find
out what are the best practicesand what are things that people
are doing really, really wellthat have made all the
difference in their business.
And then, of course, you takethat data and you apply it to
your own business and you followwhat they're doing.

(04:54):
And he was saying look, this isall backwards.
You really don't want to becopying your competitors,
because if you do, all you'redoing is becoming just like them
.
And the more everybody becomesjust like everybody else, the
less people will be able tostand out and be distinctive and
be noticed by whoever it isthat they're wanting to be

(05:16):
noticed by.
I think in the online world,this happens all the time.
I mean, we're constantlybombarded with messages with
most of the bigger influencers,people like Alex Hermosi, who's
telling us what to do and how todo it and so on, and everybody
wants to be like Alex.
You don't want to be like Alex.
Like, no matter how good hisadvice might seem, being just

(05:40):
like him isn't going to get youanywhere.
You're just going to be usuallya lesser version of what he is,
which is not a way to win thegame.
So reverse benchmarking isbasically looking for things
that your competitors aren'tdoing well and paying attention
to that.
And he was telling the story ofhow this one agency went on a

(06:03):
research project for a clientand the client was a restaurant,
and so they went around toother five-star restaurants to
see how those five-starrestaurants do their thing.
And so they're being served and, of course, it's a five-star
restaurant, the meal is great,the service is really good and
people are going, wow, that waspretty fantastic.

(06:24):
And they're all sort of writingdown all the really good things
that happened.
But it turned out that the onething that they didn't do very
well was there were a couple ofpeople in the party who, instead
of wanting wine, they asked forbeer, and they were kind of
treated like third classcitizens.
It's like, okay, well, we havethis one beer.

(06:45):
You can have that and you know,totally different from if you
ask for wine.
The waiter would startrecommending particular wines
that would go with theparticular meal that you served,
and so on.
And the beer drinkers?
They got none of that.
So the recommendation to thisrestaurant client was lean into

(07:05):
what you can do for the peoplewho come into your restaurant
who prefer to drink beer andserve them as well as the people
who prefer to drink wine, sothat now when someone asks for
beer, you actually have a menufor beers that's as healthy as
the menu for wine and youeducate your staff so that they

(07:26):
can do beer pairings withparticular items on the menu.
That's going to position you assomething completely unique for
that population, and so all ofthe people of which there are
many who love their beer, whowant to learn all about the best
kind of craft beer and all thenuances of how to pair beer with

(07:47):
a meal, treat them well in aplace where no one else is doing
that, and that will make you aleader in your space.
This is the whole idea behindreverse benchmarking.
I wanted to take this and applyit to my own business and I
looked out at my marketplace,which is helping people make

(08:08):
video, in particular, short formvideo, and when I go on YouTube
and I go online, there's, Idon't know, tens of thousands of
people I have YouTube channelsteaching people how to make
video.
There's a lot of it.
So, in terms of the how-toworld like do you use your phone
, do you use a camera?
What kind of camera, what kindof lighting?

(08:29):
All that kind of stuff Likethat information is all over the
place, and so there's reallynot much room for somebody to
get up and say, okay, here I'mgoing to show you how to do that
too.
However, there is a group that'sbeing underserved and this is
who I decided to start serving,which is the people who they

(08:49):
don't really want to learn howto do video.
They don't want to make thevideo themselves.
What they do want is they wantto be the face of their brand.
They understand that growingtheir personal brand has
tremendous value for theirbusiness, and they just don't
have a lot of time to spendcreating, posting, publishing

(09:10):
and so forth on social media.
They don't want to do all ofthat.
They're too busy doing theirbusiness to have the time to
have that happen.
So my service is allowing themto do this in this super time,
efficient way, where, number one, they don't need to know
anything about video.
Number two, they don't evennecessarily have to be a great

(09:33):
speaker.
And number three, they don'thave to take a lot of time.
So I sit down and I do aninterview with my clients and we
just spend one hour, and weonly do this once a month and so
in an hour I sit there and wehave this conversation and I'm
pulling out their insights andI'm pulling out their stories

(09:54):
and I'm helping them soundarticulate and professional and
look and sound good, becausewhen I do it in person I use my
very best cameras and then Itake that footage and I edit it
into short, concise, clear, whatI call mic drop moments and
then for them I schedule andpublish it across all their

(10:16):
social channels.
So after just one hour they'llget more than a month of social
media content.
And with some clients, I'llwork with their team and I'll
interview three of their people,let's say, and after three
one-hour interviews we'll end upwith enough content for four to
six months of social mediaposting.

(10:37):
With that kind of client, I'monly meeting with them two,
maybe three times a year at themost, which for them is super
time efficient, and their wholeteam is getting this personal
brand visibility and they'restanding out.
And they're standing out inpart because I'm helping them do
their own reverse benchmarkingwith their messaging to talk

(10:59):
about things that theircompetitors aren't talking about
.
So take a look and see how youcan start applying this in your
business.
What are your competitors notdoing that you could lean into
and do really well?
And to finish my swimming story, even though I lost that race,
our team did win the conferencechampionship.

(11:22):
So that was one happy ending.
But then, when I went home forthe summer, I joined a local
swimming club.
I started swimming doubleworkouts all summer long.
I probably trained harder thanI ever had in my life I ever had
in my life.
And then the following season,instead of thinking about my
competition, I set a goal thatwas every time I swim, I'm going

(11:48):
to do a personal best time.
I'm only going to focus on whatI'm doing and I'm only going to
care whether I hit my goal ofdoing a personal best time.
I'm not even going to worryabout whether I win or lose and
what did happen.
I'm not even going to worryabout whether I win or lose.
And what did happen?
Every time I swam that wholesecond year, I swam faster than

(12:08):
I ever had before in my life.
I did a lifetime best and I wonevery single race, including
the conference championship.
Right, that's a little bitabout what's possible when you
stop worrying about thecompetition.
And if you want to stop worryingabout your competition and get
your message out there andbecome the face of your brand
and do it on video, let's have aconversation about how you can

(12:32):
get started with your own MicDrop Moments, just go to
mymicdropmomentscom Drop Moments.
Just go to mymicdropmomentscomand you can learn all about the
program and schedule a time totalk with me to see if we're a
good fit to work together andI'll see you next time.
So long, though, you don't justlisten to this and go away and

(12:55):
not actually do anything, it'stime to take action.
If you're ready to elevate yourbusiness with video content
that will do the selling for you, I want to invite you to a free
video brand assessment wherewe'll walk through your current
strategy, see where you're atand help you identify the video
content that will drive moresales for your business.

(13:18):
All you need to do is click thelink in the show notes to
schedule your free assessment,and together we'll set you up
for success.
Don't miss out on this chanceto transform your business with
the right video strategy.
And that's it for today'sepisode of the Standout Business

(13:41):
Show.
Thanks for listening.
If you found this episodehelpful, don't forget to
subscribe and share it with afriend, because the number one
way that people find out about apodcast like this one is
because they heard about it fromone of their friends.
Remember, keep making a biggerdifference by doing business

(14:02):
differently, and until next time, so long.