420 Design Blog
Challenging the Box
17 Jan 2007 | Angie H
As a designer, part of the fun, I think, is the challenge to think outside the proverbial box. To create new, original and, quite possibly, innovative designs. To shake up the status quo. And I'm willing to bet most creative people would agree. Perhaps its our nature. But the small business world could use a little of the same.
All too often I see small businesses doing the same thing everyone else is doing. It's become commonplace for a business owner to look over at the competition and decide that he needs to be doing the same thing.
"Their site has a blue header that spans the browser, then we should have a green one."
"They're doing email newsletters. Guess we should too."
"Hey, they've got a blog. Can we have one too?"
There's no doubt that there's a benefit to learning from what your competition is doing right. But simply following what they do will never lead you to outperform them or even to significantly differentiate yourself from them. Instead, a better thought would be, "What can I do differently?" Not just what can be done better, but differently. Better just means the same as before but with some improvements.
Business owners shouldn't be afraid to be truly different.