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The Competition
How to prepare to compete
Jaime Solis
12 Sep
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“The customer rarely buys what the company thinks it’s selling.” — Peter Drucker
The Red Thread This Week
The Competition
A lot of the leaders and creators I know skip the competitive analysis entirely.
Not because they don't care about what “the competition” is up to, but because it feels like clinical, MBA-level homework.
Probably involves a spreadsheet, or a consultant…and that’s a drag.
But if you are working to bring your products, art, or ideas to the world, you are in an ACTIVE competition.
For things like customers and attention, but also for things like belief, trust, and action.
And your real competition is rarely who you think it is.
If you're a coach, your competition isn't just the other coaches:
It's the free YouTube rabbit hole that feels easier than paying for guidance.
It's the friend giving advice over drinks who "gets it."
If you're building a product or service, your biggest rivals aren’t just other players in your space:
It’s the status quo; “the way things are done around here.”
Or your customers simply choosing to do nothing at all.
If you're creating content, you're not just competing with other creators:
You're competing with Netflix, with scrolling, with the couch.
With every attention-seeking nugget of media on earth.
That’s why a competitive analysis matters: if done well, it forces you to see the world through your audience’s eyes.
To understand what they compare you against, what they trust, and what makes them hesitate.
The Red Thread this week is about pulling the competitive analysis down from the ivory tower of MBA’s and executive workshops, and making it practical for you and your business.
~ Jaime
🔑 The Unlock
Simple & Effective Competitive Analysis
Let’s dust off some common frameworks and make them useful for you and your team:
1️⃣ SWOT = Your 4-Way Mirror.
A classic exercise, but flip it to put your customers in the driver seat:
Strengths → What your people say they love about you
Weaknesses → What they wish you'd fix
Opportunities → What competitors fumble that you could nail
Threats → What competitors do brilliantly that you're still figuring out
Most SWOT analysis are run from an “inside the business” POV. The real secret is to run them from an OUTSIDE the business perspective.
2️⃣ Porter's Five Forces = Your Weather Map.
Think of it like checking conditions before you set sail:
Who's entering your space?
Who controls the platforms or pricing?
What's the easiest alternative to you?
How much bargaining/buying power do your customers have?
How intense is the direct competition?
What industry-specific storms do you see on the horizon that others are ignoring?
3️⃣ PEST = Your Seismograph.
This is about reading the room:
Political shifts (platform rules, regulations).
Economic changes (investments, contractions).
Social movements (cultural winds, shifting norms).
Technology disruption (AI tools, new platforms).
What fault lines are you building on that could shift without warning?
4️⃣ VOC (Voice of the Customer) = Secret Weapon.
The real intelligence isn't what your competitors are doing—it's what their customers are saying:
"Love this creator, but wish the videos were shorter."
"Great product, but the checkout felt sketchy."
"Interesting looking online course, but couldn't tell if it was for me."
Where are people complaining about things you could actually solve?
📌 Remember: Effective competitive analysis is about listening more carefully than anyone else bothers to.
💡 Creative Edge
Your Real Competition
It's tempting to believe you’re losing customers or audience to direct competitors.
But more often, it's your own blind spots doing the damage.
The content you never shared because it felt too “off brand.”
The audience desire you noticed but never addressed.
The tiny friction point you ignored because it seemed insignificant.
The leaders and creators who win don't spend their time obsessing over what everyone else is doing.
They spend it listening harder to their own people.
They notice what activates their audience in the comments section.
They pay attention to questions that keep coming up.
They fix the small annoyances others dismiss as "not worth it."
📌 Mindset shift: The marketplace is an incredible listening device. Embrace a posture of consistent listening to spot patterns and opportunities.
🎲 Prompt Playground
Your 15-Minute Intelligence Briefing
Use this to build a lightweight, competitive intelligence report to help you make better decisions:
Prompt:
I need to understand my competitive landscape better so I can make smarter strategic decisions. Help me build a practical analysis using real customer voices.
My context:
What I do: [your business/project/content - be specific]
Who I serve: [describe your actual audience, not who you wish it was]
My main competitor: [one specific competitor or alternative option]
My customer feedback sources: [where your audience gives you feedback - comments, emails, reviews, etc.]
Competitor feedback sources: [where you can find their customer voices - their reviews, social comments, forums, etc.]
If I have specific feedback to analyze, I'll paste examples below. If not, help me identify what to look for and where to find it.
[PASTE ACTUAL FEEDBACK HERE - both positive and negative examples from your audience and your competitor's audience, if available]
Build me a strategic overview:
MIRROR ANALYSIS
What my audience loves about me: [based on actual feedback]
What they wish I'd improve: [real complaints or suggestions]
What my competitor's customers complain about: [opportunities for me]
What my competitor's customers rave about: [threats I need to address]
PATTERN RECOGNITION
What trends do you see in the feedback that I should pay attention to?
Where are there gaps between what people want and what's available?
What assumptions about my audience might be wrong based on this data?
STRATEGIC INSIGHTS
One specific thing I could improve this week based on this analysis
One experiment I could run in the next 30 days to test an opportunity
One blind spot I should watch that could become a problem
Finally, rewrite my value proposition as if my biggest competitor was "doing nothing" - how do I make action feel more compelling than inaction?
✅ Bonus Prompt:
"If my audience had to explain to a friend why they chose me over the alternatives, what would they say? And what would make that explanation even stronger?"
📡 Industry Pulse
Nearly 1/3 of All Tracks Uploaded to Deezer are Fully AI-Generated, says platform — MBW
YouTube Rolls Out Multi-Language Dubbing, now available to all creators — The Publish Press
Reddit is Revamping its Metrics to highlight active, human content creation — Tubefilter
YouTube’s AI Slop Problem and why it might be too big to stop — The Current
🛠️ Creator Tools
Open Peeps — A free library of hundreds of hand-drawn vector illustrations
NewPic — A simple, professional grade AI photo editor.
Claude File Creator — Claude can now create and edit Excel, PPT, Doc and PDF files.
💼 Open Opportunities
VP of Marketing – Nebula17 (Los Angeles) View Role →
Manager, Business Strategy & Planning – NPR (Hybrid/D.C.) View Role →
Your next move in Music
Explore the MBW Job Board →
Crack into Podcasting
Check out the Sounds Profitable Job Board →
📌 Know someone looking? Forward this to them!
⚡ Your Next Move
I run JMedia, an advisory firm helping companies and creatives bring their ideas to life.
Here are a few ways we can work together when you’re ready:
🗓️ Get 1:1 Support from Me: Need a thought partner to help shape what's next for your project or team? Let’s talk.
🎙️ Audit Your Podcast: Get pro-level eyes on your podcast without hiring a full-time producer.
🚀 Speaking Engagements & Workshops: Looking for a speaker for your next live (or virtual) event? Or someone to lead your next strategic workshop? Drop me a note!
Thanks for spending time with Red Threads this week, I’m glad you’re here :)
~ Jaime