Get Competitive, Be Different, and Win

You can learn a ton about business by eating a Panchero’s Mexican Grill burrito – chances are you never had a Panchero’s burrito if you’re from the west coast (closes one is in Arizona), Panchero’s is a competitor of Chipotle Mexican Grill but hasn’t grown as fast, you know those gigantic burritos wrapped up in aluminum foil where you choose what goes in the burritos (kinda like a Subway for burritos). Well if you’re a fan of Chipotle you’re in for a treat with a Panchero’s burrito.

For the longest time I’ve been an avid fan of Chipotle’s burritos and I was actually against trying Panchero’s because all I’ve heard was its just like Chipotle (so I figured it would be worst because at the time I thought Chipotle was the world’s greatest). However I put my ego aside and went ahead and tried the burrito – to my surprise the burrito was awesome and to be honest the burrito was basically the same besides three key differences, special queso sauce, homemade tortilla (made on the spot), and a simple method of mixing the ingredients together.

Alright so you must be wondering how I learned an important business lesson by eating a Panchero’s burrito. The lesson I learned was don’t be afraid to compete. Yup! thats right, don’t be afraid of competition. You may have a business or business idea with several competitors but don’t let that crush your idea.

Competition Validates there is a Market, Now Find a Way to Be Different

While Chipotle grew and decided to be the same, Panchero’s slowly grew and decided to be different – they made three key game changer differences and added an awesome social media campaign (including an iPhone app and text message specials) to keep customers coming back. Competition should never get you down because this is business and you have to be competitive to win, period.You can apply this example of competition to any company, Apple vs. HP, Starbucks vs. Coffee Bean, Borders vs. Branes & Noble, Foursquare vs. Gowalla. I use to be a person that would get a remarkable business idea and a week later I would found out it was already done, my dreams would be crushed and I would go back to the drawing board. Soon I started to realize how most of the great companies out there have a large number of competitors and how I don’t always need to reinvent the wheel. If you don’t have a competitor there are two things to assume, there is no market for the product or it hasn’t been done before. This when you go ahead and test your target market.

Right now I’m in the stage of finding a niche market that needs a product and figuring out how I can provide extreme value – time to get competitive.

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