It is very easy to assume everyone working in your field is a competitor. That assumption makes you track a lot of people who do not matter, and miss people who are actually taking your customers.
To stand out you first have to know who you are competing with, and in what form. That starts with telling two types apart.
The direct competitor
This is someone selling the same thing you sell, to the same audience, in roughly the same way.
If you have a café in Zamalek, another café in the same area with a similar menu for the same kind of customer is a direct competitor. If you build websites for mid-sized companies, any other company doing the same for the same size is a direct competitor.
You compare yourself to this competitor on details: price, quality, speed, service. And the customer really does compare you head to head.
The indirect competitor
This is someone offering something different that achieves the same customer goal.
If you sell online courses, YouTube and books are indirect competitors — the same goal (learning) in a different form at a different cost. If you own a restaurant, the indirect competitor is the supermarket where the customer buys ingredients and cooks at home.
This type is more dangerous, because it does not show up in any search about your field, and because it is usually cheaper than you or free.
Why does the distinction matter?
Because the response to each is completely different:
- With a direct competitor, your job is to make the difference clear. Why are you not a copy of them? What do you do that they do not?
- With an indirect competitor, your job is to explain why your approach exists at all. You are not comparing yourself to a company, you are comparing two outcomes: what happens with the other solution, and what happens with you.
Anyone promoting a course while comparing themselves only to other courses leaves the biggest competitor — free YouTube — completely unanswered.
How to build a simple competition map
You do not need a big document. One page with three columns:
- Column one: three direct competitors, and what each one leads with in the first sentence on their page.
- Column two: three alternative ways the customer solves the problem without you (including doing it himself or doing nothing).
- Column three: one thing you do that nobody in the first two columns does.
If column three is empty, that is the most important thing you will learn. It means your differentiation still lives in your head and not in the market.
Differentiation is built on a comparison, not a slogan
Most companies write "we are different" without saying different from what. And the customer has no time to work out the difference himself.
The practical method: write a sentence in this shape — "unlike [the usual approach], we do [X], which gets you [Y]." That sentence makes the difference tangible because it places it next to the alternative the customer is actually considering.
A worked example
An office cleaning company. Direct competitor: other cleaning companies. Indirect competitor: the company hiring a cleaner on a salary.
If you focus only on the direct one, you will talk about price and materials. But most of the customers who turn you down do so because they are convinced a permanent employee is cheaper and safer. So your most important message is that comparison: the real cost of an employee, the holidays, and who covers the absences.
That message is what opens the market — not a ten percent discount.
A third type nobody mentions: the future competitor
Beyond direct and indirect, there is a third type — someone not yet in your market who could enter it easily because they already have the customers.
Example: if you provide accounting services to restaurants, the bank they use or the point-of-sale software they run could add that service with the press of a button, because they own the relationship and the data.
The response is not fear, it is to build what is hard to copy: a direct relationship with the customer, deep knowledge of their sector, and a reputation attached to you as a person rather than a platform.
Which kind of competition are you in right now?
Look at your last ten sales conversations and write the reason for each rejection or delay:
- If most are "we found someone cheaper," you are in direct competition and the difference between you is not clear.
- If most are "we'll do it in-house," you are competing with the internal option, and your job is to make its real cost visible.
- If most are "not right now," you are competing with the non-decision, and your job is to make the problem clearer and more immediate.
Those three situations need completely different messages, and confusing them is why so many companies feel their marketing "isn't working."
Differentiation does not have to be in the product
Many people think standing out requires inventing something new. That is rarely what happens. Most differentiation in the Egyptian market happens elsewhere:
- In who you serve. The same service for one sector you know well.
- In how you price. A subscription instead of a one-off, or a fixed fee instead of hourly.
- In the experience. Speed, clarity, reporting, one person responsible.
- In place. Serving one area more deeply than anyone.
- In the guarantee. Carrying part of the risk that others push onto the customer.
Any one of these is enough to make you genuinely different without changing what you sell.
Review your competition periodically
Markets change: a competitor closes, a new one arrives, an alternative appears. The map you drew a year ago is probably out of date.
Put a fixed date every three months to review it and ask the same questions again. The review takes an hour and prevents surprises that cost months.
In short
No business has zero competitors, but not everyone in your field is one. Know who the customer compares you to directly, and who solves his problem in a completely different way.
The first step in standing out is knowing who you compete with — then choosing one thing to do visibly differently, instead of copying everyone.
This is part of a series on pricing and competition — which also covers the Pepsi versus juice shop example, and why not to compete on price.