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CHAPTER 3 THE MILLION-DOLLAR BUSINESS IDEA

Sameness Kills

The number one reason why most businesses get killed by the
competition and fail is because of ‘sameness.’ The tuition
centre that the new entrepreneur starts is just like hundreds
of other tuition centres. The electronics store that the new
entrepreneur opens is just like all the others in the
neighbourhood. The hairdressing salon that the new
entrepreneur opens is just like any other. And so on…

When your business is no different from anybody else’s
(the only thing different being the name of your company),
then you will find that your chances of success is just like
everybody else…very low! Remember that only 10% of
businesses succeed and 90% fail. So, if you do business the
same as everybody else, you can bet that you are going to
be among the 90% that will fold up.

When you sell basically the same product/services as your
competition, you will find that you will always have to
fight hard for every customer, based solely on price. Usually,
the lower price vendor wins. In this kind of ‘perfect
competition,’ nobody really makes a lot of money. Everybody
is just struggling to survive.

Wherever I conduct my entrepreneurship workshops, people
tell me the same thing. Competition is tough, very tough. They
tell me that business used to be good, but when all the
competition came in, prices fell and profits disappeared. So
they ask me what kind of business they can get into which
has less competition and more opportunities? This is a story
I hear all too often.

My reply to them is that every industry is competitive if you
do business like everybody else. However, if you do your

SECRETS OF BUILDING MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR BUSINESSES 83