Competitive Alternatives: Understanding Your True Competition

“The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.” — Henry Ford

The Invisible Competition

When Charles Rolls and Tim Warrillow decided to create a new tonic water in 2004, they began by surveying the competitive landscape. The category seemed straightforward—Schweppes dominated the market with a few minor players occupying small niches. The path forward appeared to be creating a slightly better version of what Schweppes offered, perhaps with premium packaging and marketing.

But as they spoke to bartenders and consumers, they discovered something surprising. The real competition wasn’t Schweppes at all. It was the absence of thought. Most gin drinkers had never considered the tonic water’s quality because they’d never been given a reason to care. The true battle wasn’t against another tonic brand but against indifference—the assumption that tonic was merely a bitter afterthought to the gin.

This revelation transformed Fever-Tree’s entire approach. Rather than positioning against existing tonic waters, they positioned against thoughtlessness about mixers. Their now-famous tagline, “If 3/4 of your drink is the mixer, make sure you use the best,” didn’t mention competitors. It challenged the very assumption that the mixer was an insignificant component of the drink.

The result? Fever-Tree built a business valued at over £1 billion by competing against an alternative that traditional competitive analysis would never have identified.

This story illustrates a fundamental truth about positioning: your true competition isn’t merely who you think you’re competing against—it’s what customers would do if your solution didn’t exist. Understanding these alternatives—not just direct competitors but the full spectrum of options customers consider—creates the foundation for effective positioning.

In previous chapters, we’ve explored how to discover your essence, translate it into a unifying idea, and select your positioning approach. Now we’ll tackle a critical question: what are you actually being compared to in the minds of customers? The answer is rarely as simple as “other companies in your category.”

The Classification Mistake

The traditional approach to competitive analysis starts with industry classification. Financial services companies study other financial services companies. Software firms analyse other software firms. Consultancies examine other consultancies.

This approach seems logical but contains a fundamental flaw: customers don’t care about your industry classification. They care about solving problems and achieving outcomes—and they’ll consider any option that might work, regardless of category boundaries.

Consider these examples of how traditional competitive analysis misses true alternatives:

When Netflix began, video rental shops like Blockbuster saw other rental shops as their competition. But customers weren’t committed to the concept of video rental—they wanted convenient entertainment. Their alternatives included cinema visits, television, video games, and eventually streaming—options a traditional competitive analysis would have missed entirely.

When Monzo entered the banking market, established banks perceived them as just another bank with a different interface. But for many customers, the relevant alternatives weren’t other banks but payment apps like PayPal, budgeting tools like Mint, or even the option to simply use cash and avoid digital banking altogether.

When the first iPhone launched, Nokia and Blackberry viewed it primarily as a new entrant in the mobile phone category. They measured it against their existing offerings based on call quality, email capabilities, and keyboard functionality. What they missed was that customers were increasingly seeing smartphones as pocket computers, comparing them to laptops and entertainment devices rather than just other phones.

These examples highlight the classification mistake—assuming your competition is defined by industry categorisation rather than customer alternatives. This mistake leads to dangerous competitive blindness, where you focus on traditional rivals while overlooking the alternatives actually shaping customer decisions.

The Alternative Spectrum

To avoid this competitive blindness, we need a more comprehensive framework—one that explores the full spectrum of alternatives customers consider. The Alternative Spectrum encompasses five distinct layers of competition:

1. Direct Competitors

These are the most obvious alternatives—similar solutions in the same category that offer comparable features and benefits. They’re what most competitive analysis focuses on exclusively.

For Slack, direct competitors include Microsoft Teams, Mattermost, and other team communication platforms. For Monzo, they include other digital banks like Starling and Revolut. For Patagonia, they include outdoor brands like The North Face and Arc’teryx.

Understanding direct competitors is necessary but insufficient. They represent just one layer of alternatives—and often not the most important one.

2. Adjacent Category Alternatives

These are different types of solutions that address the same fundamental need or job-to-be-done, but through different approaches or categories.

For Slack, adjacent alternatives include email, project management tools like Asana, and videoconferencing platforms like Zoom. For Monzo, they include payment apps like PayPal, budgeting tools like YNAB, and traditional banks with mobile apps. For Patagonia, they include fast fashion brands, general outdoor retailers, and secondhand clothing markets.

Adjacent alternatives often represent more significant threats than direct competitors because they approach the problem differently rather than just offering a slightly different version of the same solution.

3. DIY/Internal Solutions

These are approaches customers create themselves rather than purchasing from providers. They include spreadsheets instead of specialised software, in-house teams instead of external services, and homemade solutions instead of commercial products.

For Slack, DIY alternatives include companies using a combination of email, shared documents, and occasional meetings. For Monzo, they include personal spreadsheets for budgeting and cash envelopes for spending control. For Patagonia, they include repairing existing clothing instead of buying new items.

DIY solutions are often overlooked in competitive analysis but frequently represent the status quo you’re trying to displace—especially in B2B contexts where “build versus buy” decisions are common.

4. Status Quo

This represents customers simply continuing with their current approach, despite its limitations. It’s the inertia of “good enough” that prevents change despite better alternatives.

For Slack, the status quo might be continuing with fragmented communication across various channels. For Monzo, it might be staying with a frustrating traditional bank because switching seems difficult. For Patagonia, it might be wearing existing clothing despite it no longer meeting needs.

Status quo is frequently your biggest competitor—the familiar discomfort that’s easier than change. As the saying goes, “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.”

5. Problem Avoidance

The final alternative is customers choosing to live with the problem unaddressed—either ignoring it completely or finding ways to work around it rather than solving it directly.

For Slack, problem avoidance might mean accepting communication gaps and information silos as inevitable. For Monzo, it might mean avoiding financial planning altogether. For Patagonia, it might mean neglecting outdoor activities requiring specialised clothing.

Problem avoidance represents the most fundamental alternative—the option to do nothing at all about the issue you’re trying to solve.

This comprehensive spectrum reveals a crucial insight: you’re competing against far more than just similar companies in your category. You’re competing against every alternative approach customers might take—including the powerful alternatives of doing nothing or maintaining the status quo.

The Alternative Analysis Methodology

Now that we understand the spectrum of alternatives, how do we systematically identify and analyse them? The Alternative Analysis Methodology provides a comprehensive approach:

1. Customer Journey Mapping

Begin by mapping how customers currently navigate the problem you’re trying to solve. This journey typically includes:

Trigger Events: What prompts customers to consider solutions in the first place?
Information Sources: Where do they learn about potential approaches?
Selection Criteria: What factors influence their decision-making?
Decision Barriers: What prevents commitment to specific solutions?
Post-Purchase Evaluation: How do they assess whether they’ve made the right choice?

For example, when Slack conducted this analysis, they discovered that communication frustration typically accumulated gradually before reaching a tipping point—often when a critical message was missed or an important document couldn’t be found. This insight helped them understand that their true competition wasn’t just other communication tools but the tipping point itself—the moment when frustration overcame inertia.

2. Alternative Identification

Next, systematically identify alternatives across all five layers of the spectrum:

Direct Competitors: Similar solutions in your category
Adjacent Alternatives: Different approaches to the same problem
DIY/Internal Options: Customer-created approaches
Status Quo: Continuing with current approach
Problem Avoidance: Choosing to live with the problem

For example, when Stripe conducted this analysis for their payment processing solution, they identified:

Direct Competitors: Traditional payment gateways like Braintree and Authorize.net
Adjacent Alternatives: Payment aggregators like PayPal and Square
DIY Options: In-house payment processing systems built by development teams
Status Quo: Manual invoice processing for businesses or cash-only for small merchants
Problem Avoidance: Limiting sales to certain regions or payment methods to avoid complexity

This comprehensive mapping revealed that Stripe’s true competition wasn’t just other payment processors but the entire landscape of payment handling approaches—including the powerful alternatives of building in-house or simply limiting payment options.

3. Alternative Evaluation

For each identified alternative, conduct a systematic assessment:

Strengths: What advantages does this alternative offer?
Limitations: What disadvantages or frustrations exist?
Selection Factors: Why do customers choose this alternative?
Evolution Trajectory: How is this alternative changing over time?
Market Perception: How is this alternative viewed and discussed?

For example, when HubSpot evaluated alternatives to their marketing platform, they discovered that the DIY approach of using multiple point solutions had a surprising strength: it allowed marketers to select “best-of-breed” tools for each specific function. But it also had significant limitations in data integration and workflow consistency. Understanding these nuances helped HubSpot position their integrated platform as solving the integration challenge while still emphasising best-practice methodologies.

4. Alternatives Evolution

Finally, analyse how alternatives are evolving over time:

Which alternatives are gaining or losing prominence?
How are existing alternatives changing their approaches?
What new alternatives are emerging in the market?
How might technological or cultural shifts affect alternatives?
What would make various alternatives more or less attractive?

For example, when Notion analysed the productivity tool landscape, they recognised that direct competitors like Evernote were gradually adding collaborative features, adjacent alternatives like Trello were expanding beyond their initial use cases, and the DIY alternative of using multiple tools was becoming increasingly frustrating as remote work expanded. This evolutionary understanding helped them position their all-in-one workspace approach as the natural next step in productivity tool evolution.

This methodology provides a systematic approach to understanding the complete competitive landscape from the customer’s perspective—revealing alternatives that traditional competitive analysis would miss entirely.

Case Study: Slack’s Alternative Analysis

To see this methodology in action, let’s examine how Slack identified and positioned against their true competition.

When Slack entered the market in 2013, a traditional competitive analysis would have focused on existing team chat platforms like HipChat and Microsoft Lync. But Slack took a different approach, conducting a comprehensive alternative analysis that revealed a much broader competitive landscape:

Direct Competitors

Team chat platforms like HipChat and Yammer
Enterprise communication tools like Microsoft Lync
Internal social networks like Chatter and Jive

Adjacent Alternatives

Email for team communication
Project management tools with comment features
Video conferencing for real-time discussion
Shared documents with comment functionality
Physical meetings and in-person communication

DIY/Internal Solutions

Combinations of multiple tools (email + shared drives + SMS)
Custom-built internal communication platforms
Ad hoc solutions varying by team or department

Status Quo

Fragmented communication across multiple channels
Information silos between departments
Knowledge trapped in individual inboxes
Inconsistent communication practices across teams

Problem Avoidance

Accepting communication gaps as inevitable
Working around information silos rather than addressing them
Minimising cross-team collaboration to avoid communication challenges

This comprehensive analysis led to a crucial insight: Slack’s primary competition wasn’t other chat platforms—it was email and the status quo of fragmented communication. As Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield noted in his now-famous “We Don’t Sell Saddles Here” internal memo:

“We’re selling a reduction in information overload, relief from stress, and a new ability to extract the enormous value of hitherto useless corporate archives. We’re selling better organizations, better teams. That’s a good thing for people to buy and it is a much better thing for us to sell in the long run.”

This understanding shaped Slack’s entire positioning approach. Rather than comparing features against other chat platforms, they positioned against email itself—the “Email Killer” that would transform how teams work together. Their marketing focused not on chat features but on the transformative impact of centralised, searchable, organised communication.

This positioning against the true alternative—rather than just direct competitors—helped Slack create a distinctive market position that attracted millions of users and ultimately led to their $27 billion acquisition by Salesforce. They succeeded not by being a slightly better chat platform but by fundamentally changing how people thought about team communication.

The Positioning Opportunity Matrix

Once you’ve identified and analysed your true competitive alternatives, how do you use this understanding to inform your positioning? The Positioning Opportunity Matrix provides a framework for translating alternative analysis into positioning strategy:

1. Direct Comparison

This approach positions you explicitly against direct competitors, highlighting specific advantages over similar solutions.

When to Use:

When direct competitors dominate customer consideration
When you have clear, demonstrable advantages over similar solutions
When customers already understand the category well
When you want to capture share within an established market

Example: Zoom used this approach by positioning directly against established video conferencing platforms like WebEx and GoToMeeting. Their tagline “Meet Happy” and messaging around reliability directly addressed the frustrations customers experienced with existing solutions. This direct comparison helped them rapidly gain market share within the established video conferencing category.

2. Category Redefinition

This approach positions you as creating or defining a new category that transcends existing classifications, making direct competitors seem limited by comparison.

When to Use:

When your solution combines elements from multiple categories
When existing categories inadequately describe your value
When you want to create differentiation beyond feature comparison
When you have resources for category education

Example: HubSpot used this approach by creating the “Inbound Marketing” category rather than positioning as just another marketing automation tool. This category redefinition allowed them to stand apart from both traditional marketing approaches and existing marketing software, creating a distinctive position that made competitors seem outdated rather than just different.

3. Solution Evolution

This approach positions you as the next evolutionary step beyond current approaches, including DIY and internal solutions.

When to Use:

When many customers currently use DIY or internal approaches
When existing solutions haven’t kept pace with changing needs
When you can demonstrate clear progression from current methods
When customers are feeling the limitations of their approaches

Example: Notion used this approach by positioning as the “all-in-one workspace” that represented the natural evolution beyond fragmented productivity tools. Rather than positioning against any single competitor, they positioned as the solution to the fragmentation itself—the next step in the productivity tool evolution from separate apps to unified workspace.

4. Status Quo Disruption

This approach positions you explicitly against the current way of doing things, highlighting the cost of maintaining the status quo rather than adopting your solution.

When to Use:

When inertia is your biggest competitor
When the status quo has significant hidden costs or limitations
When customers need to recognise a problem before seeking solutions
When you’re creating a new market rather than entering an existing one

Example: TransferWise (now Wise) used this approach by positioning against the status quo of traditional bank transfers. Their “Banks Charge Hidden Fees” campaign directly attacked the acceptance of hidden exchange rate markups, making the status quo seem like a bad choice rather than just the default option. This positioning helped them grow rapidly despite competing against established financial institutions.

5. Problem Reframing

This approach positions by changing how customers think about the problem itself, making your solution the natural answer to the reframed question.

When to Use:

When the current problem definition limits solution consideration
When many customers are choosing problem avoidance
When your approach takes a fundamentally different perspective
When you want to create a completely new market space

Example: Airbnb used this approach by reframing the travel accommodation problem from “finding a hotel room” to “belonging anywhere.” This fundamental reframing made traditional accommodation alternatives seem to be answering the wrong question entirely. Instead of competing on room quality or price, they changed the conversation to authentic experiences and local connection.

For each business situation, the optimal positioning approach depends on which alternatives represent your true competition from the customer’s perspective. The Positioning Opportunity Matrix helps you select the most effective strategy based on your specific competitive landscape.

The Alternatives Inventory

Now let’s put these concepts into practice. The Alternatives Inventory provides a systematic tool for identifying and analysing your true competitive alternatives:

1. Job-to-be-Done Analysis

Begin by clearly defining what fundamental job customers are trying to accomplish:

Functional Job: What practical outcome are they seeking?
Emotional Job: What feeling or state are they trying to achieve?
Social Job: What impression or relationship are they trying to create?

For example, when ustwo, the digital product studio, conducted this analysis, they discovered that clients hiring them weren’t just trying to build digital products (functional job) but also to transform their organisations’ capabilities (emotional job) and demonstrate innovation leadership to stakeholders (social job). This comprehensive understanding helped them identify alternatives beyond just other digital agencies.

2. Alternative Mapping

Next, systematically map alternatives across all five layers, including their key strengths and limitations:

Direct Competitors:

[Competitor 1]: Strengths (e.g., established reputation, comprehensive features), Limitations (e.g., complex implementation, high cost)
[Competitor 2]: Strengths (e.g., specialised expertise, industry focus), Limitations (e.g., limited scope, scalability challenges)

Adjacent Solutions:

[Alternative 1]: Strengths (e.g., simplicity, familiarity), Limitations (e.g., limited functionality, integration challenges)
[Alternative 2]: Strengths (e.g., lower cost, accessibility), Limitations (e.g., different approach, learning curve)

DIY/Internal Approaches:

[Approach 1]: Strengths (e.g., control, customisation), Limitations (e.g., resource requirements, maintenance burden)
[Approach 2]: Strengths (e.g., no additional cost, immediate availability), Limitations (e.g., limited capabilities, opportunity cost)

Status Quo Options:

[Current Approach 1]: Strengths (e.g., familiarity, no change required), Limitations (e.g., ongoing pain points, inefficiency)
[Current Approach 2]: Strengths (e.g., established processes, sunk costs), Limitations (e.g., scaling issues, competitive disadvantage)

Problem Avoidance:

[Avoidance Strategy 1]: Strengths (e.g., no immediate action needed, no cost), Limitations (e.g., persistent issues, missed opportunities)
[Avoidance Strategy 2]: Strengths (e.g., focus on other priorities, simplicity), Limitations (e.g., long-term consequences, workarounds required)

For example, when ThoughtWorks, the technology consultancy, mapped their alternatives, they discovered that their true competition wasn’t just other IT consultancies but also:

In-house development teams (DIY alternative)
Offshore development centres (adjacent alternative)
Continuing with legacy systems (status quo)
Postponing digital transformation (problem avoidance)

This comprehensive mapping helped them position more effectively against the specific alternatives their target clients were actually considering.

3. Decision Journey Analysis

For each alternative, analyse how it appears throughout the customer’s decision journey:

Information Sources: Where do customers learn about this alternative?
Evaluation Criteria: What factors do customers use to compare this alternative?
Decision Barriers: What prevents customers from choosing or rejecting this alternative?
Selection Triggers: What finally prompts customers to select or dismiss this alternative?
Success Measures: How do customers determine if this alternative was the right choice?

For example, when Stripe analysed the decision journey for payment processing solutions, they discovered that developers had enormous influence even when they weren’t the final decision-makers. This insight helped them focus on developer experience as a primary differentiator against alternatives, creating their famous “7 lines of code” positioning that addressed a critical selection trigger in the decision journey.

4. Positioning Opportunity Identification

Finally, determine your optimal positioning approach based on which alternatives represent your primary competition:

Primary Alternative: Which option do most customers currently select or consider?
Key Frustrations: What limitations or pain points exist with this primary alternative?
Unique Advantages: What can you offer that this alternative cannot?
Positioning Approach: Which positioning strategy (direct comparison, category redefinition, etc.) best addresses this alternative?
Evidence Requirements: What proof would most effectively demonstrate your advantage over this alternative?

For example, when Monzo analysed positioning opportunities against traditional banks (their primary alternative), they identified key frustrations around lack of transparency and control. This led them to position explicitly against these limitations with messaging like “Banking made easy” and features that gave customers immediate visibility and control over their money. This positioning directly addressed the primary pain points with the status quo alternative most customers were considering.

By completing this Alternatives Inventory, you develop a comprehensive understanding of your true competitive landscape—not just similar companies in your category but the full spectrum of options customers actually consider.

Counter-Example: Nokia’s Alternative Blindness

To understand the danger of misidentifying your true competition, consider Nokia’s dramatic fall from mobile phone dominance.

In 2007, Nokia commanded over 50% of the global smartphone market. When Apple introduced the iPhone, Nokia’s competitive analysis focused primarily on direct comparison—evaluating the iPhone as just another entrant in the smartphone category. They assessed it against traditional smartphone criteria: call quality, battery life, email capabilities, keyboard functionality, and business features.

From this perspective, the iPhone seemed limited—it lacked a physical keyboard, had relatively short battery life, offered fewer business features than BlackBerry, and initially didn’t even support 3G networks. Nokia’s leadership famously dismissed it, with then-CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo stating: “We have some catching up to do with the internet front-end experience on some of our products, but we will, not in months but in weeks.”

What Nokia missed was that the iPhone wasn’t competing as just another smartphone. It represented an entirely different alternative—a pocket computer with communication capabilities rather than a phone with computing features. Customers weren’t comparing it primarily to Nokia phones but to their experience with computers, entertainment devices, and the internet.

Nokia continued focusing on traditional smartphone competitors like BlackBerry while missing the fundamental shift in what customers were comparing phones against. By the time they recognised their true competition, it was too late—Nokia’s smartphone market share plummeted to less than 3% by 2013, and they eventually sold their phone business to Microsoft.

This cautionary tale highlights the danger of the classification mistake—assuming your competition is defined by industry categorisation rather than customer alternatives. Nokia’s alternative blindness led them to focus on the wrong competitive comparison, missing the true alternative that would ultimately render their approach obsolete.

The Alternative Understanding Workshop

To apply these concepts to your own business, consider conducting an Alternative Understanding Workshop with your team:

Preparation

Gather recent customer research, including purchase decision interviews
Compile competitive intelligence on direct competitors
Collect customer journey information, including decision processes
Review lost deal analysis for insight into alternative selection

Step 1: Job-to-be-Done Mapping (30 minutes)

Define the fundamental job customers are hiring your solution to accomplish
Identify functional, emotional, and social dimensions of this job
Clarify how the job varies across different customer segments
Document the trigger events that activate the job for customers

Step 2: Alternative Brainstorming (45 minutes)

For each layer of the Alternative Spectrum, identify all potential options
Include direct competitors, adjacent solutions, DIY approaches, status quo, and problem avoidance
For each alternative, capture key strengths and limitations
Identify which customer segments are most likely to consider each alternative

Step 3: Decision Journey Analysis (45 minutes)

Map how customers navigate from problem recognition to solution selection
Identify where each alternative appears in this journey
Document the comparison criteria used for different alternatives
Capture the trigger events that prompt selection or rejection

Step 4: Alternative Prioritisation (30 minutes)

Determine which alternatives represent your primary competition
Assess which alternatives are gaining or losing prominence
Identify which alternatives create the greatest positioning challenge
Determine where your greatest opportunity for differentiation exists

Step 5: Positioning Strategy Development (45 minutes)

Select the optimal positioning approach based on your primary alternatives
Craft messaging that directly addresses key alternative limitations
Develop evidence that substantiates your advantage over primary alternatives
Create a communication strategy that reframes comparison in your favour

This collaborative workshop engages your team in systematically identifying and analysing your true competitive alternatives—providing the foundation for positioning that addresses what customers are actually comparing you against.

The Bi-Directional Relationship: How Alternative Analysis Refines Essence

As we’ve explored throughout this book, the relationship between essence and positioning is bi-directional. While your essence informs your positioning, the positioning work can also help refine your essence understanding.

Alternative analysis provides a particularly powerful opportunity for essence clarification. By understanding what customers compare you against, you gain insight into how they perceive your fundamental identity—which may reveal essence elements you hadn’t fully articulated.

Consider these examples:

When Mailchimp analysed their alternatives, they discovered customers weren’t just comparing them to other email marketing tools but to marketing agencies and in-house marketing teams. This revealed that their essence wasn’t just about email delivery but about marketing empowerment for small businesses—a deeper understanding that subsequently informed their essence articulation.

When TransferWise (now Wise) examined their alternatives, they found customers were comparing them not just to other money transfer services but to traditional banking relationships. This insight helped them recognise that their essence wasn’t merely about efficient transfers but about financial fairness in a broader sense—a realisation that shaped their subsequent identity as a financial company beyond just money transfers.

When Notion mapped their alternatives, they discovered customers were comparing them not just to other productivity tools but to custom knowledge management systems. This revealed that their essence was fundamentally about flexible information organisation rather than just productivity—a distinction that helped refine their essence articulation and subsequent positioning.

These examples demonstrate how the work of understanding your alternatives can illuminate aspects of your essence that may have been present but not fully articulated. The question “What are customers comparing us to?” often reveals as much about who you fundamentally are as it does about your market position.

From Understanding to Action

Now that you understand the importance of identifying your true competitive alternatives, how do you apply this insight to your positioning strategy? Consider these practical next steps:

1. Conduct Customer Alternative Interviews

Rather than asking customers directly about competitors, ask questions that reveal the alternatives they actually consider:

“Before choosing our solution, what other approaches did you consider?”
“If our solution didn’t exist, what would you have done instead?”
“When you were evaluating options, what were you comparing us against?”
“What were you doing before implementing our solution?”
“What made you decide to address this problem now rather than continuing with your previous approach?”

These questions reveal the actual alternatives in customers’ minds—which often extend far beyond your direct competitors.

2. Create an Alternative Radar System

Develop an ongoing process for monitoring how your competitive alternatives are evolving:

Track emerging solutions that might become new alternatives
Monitor how existing alternatives are changing their approaches
Assess how customer preferences between alternatives are shifting
Identify technological or market trends that might create new alternatives
Document how your positioning effectiveness against alternatives changes over time

This system ensures your positioning remains relevant as the alternative landscape evolves.

3. Reframe Your Competitor Analysis

Transform your competitive intelligence process to focus on alternatives rather than just category competitors:

Expand competitive analysis to include all five layers of alternatives
Allocate research resources proportionally to alternative importance
Develop specific intelligence gathering for DIY and status quo alternatives
Create comparison frameworks that include non-traditional alternatives
Ensure product and marketing teams understand the full alternative spectrum

This reframing ensures you’re gathering intelligence on your true competition, not just the most obvious competitors.

4. Align Positioning to Primary Alternatives

Ensure your positioning strategy directly addresses your most significant alternatives:

Select positioning approach based on primary alternative analysis
Develop messaging that explicitly addresses key alternative limitations
Create evidence that substantiates advantages over primary alternatives
Design sales enablement tools that help navigate alternative comparisons
Train customer-facing teams to address specific alternative considerations

This alignment ensures your positioning addresses what customers are actually comparing you against rather than what you assume they’re considering.

A Final Thought: The Competitive Advantage of Alternative Understanding

In an increasingly complex and interconnected market landscape, traditional competitive analysis focused solely on similar companies in your category is dangerously incomplete. Your true competition isn’t just who you think you’re competing against—it’s what customers would do if your solution didn’t exist.

By understanding the full spectrum of alternatives customers consider—from direct competitors to adjacent solutions to DIY approaches to status quo to problem avoidance—you gain profound insight into how to position your business for maximum impact.

As Netflix CEO Reed Hastings famously noted: “Our competitors aren’t other streaming services. Our competitors are sleep, reading a book, or doing anything else with the limited time people have.” This broader understanding of alternatives has helped Netflix create positioning that doesn’t just compare streaming features but addresses the fundamental question of how people choose to spend their time.

Similarly, by identifying and analysing your true competitive alternatives, you create the foundation for positioning that resonates with how customers actually make decisions—not how you assume they do based on industry categorisation.

In the next chapter, we’ll explore how understanding these alternatives enables you to “Pick a Fight”—strategically positioning against industry norms and competitors to create even greater distinction in the marketplace.

The Alternatives Inventory Worksheet

1. Job-to-be-Done Analysis

What fundamental outcome is the customer seeking?
- Functional job: _________________________________
- Emotional job: _________________________________
- Social job: _________________________________
What triggers the customer to seek a solution?
How does the job vary across customer segments?

2. Alternative Mapping

Direct Competitors:

________________: Strengths _______________ / Limitations _______________
________________: Strengths _______________ / Limitations _______________
________________: Strengths _______________ / Limitations _______________

Adjacent Solutions:

________________: Strengths _______________ / Limitations _______________
________________: Strengths _______________ / Limitations _______________
________________: Strengths _______________ / Limitations _______________

DIY/Internal Approaches:

________________: Strengths _______________ / Limitations _______________
________________: Strengths _______________ / Limitations _______________

Status Quo Options:

________________: Strengths _______________ / Limitations _______________
________________: Strengths _______________ / Limitations _______________

Problem Avoidance:

________________: Strengths _______________ / Limitations _______________
________________: Strengths _______________ / Limitations _______________

3. Decision Journey Analysis

Information Sources: How do customers learn about options?
Evaluation Criteria: What factors influence comparison?
Decision Barriers: What prevents commitment to solutions?
Selection Triggers: What finally prompts decision?
Success Measures: How do customers judge outcomes?

4. Positioning Opportunity Identification

Primary Alternative: Which option is most frequently selected?
Key Frustrations: What limitations exist with primary alternative?
Unique Advantages: What can you offer that alternatives cannot?
Positioning Approach: Which strategy best addresses this alternative?
Evidence Requirements: What proof would substantiate claims?