How would you deal with a competitor who gallops around the market telling people that you were going down, when in fact it was he who applied for creditor protection this year? Or that you lost a customer to them, when in fact that did not happen?
My take on competition is that the truth comes out in the end. If you have competitive claims to make, that is fair game. But beware that you’d better be making such claims for the right reason and with backup to prove what you are saying is true. It’s OK to show your dishsoap cleaner does a 50% better job, yet it must be based on fair testing and demonstrations. How many times do we wonder if the hand is putting less pressure on the wash cloth which is demonstrating the losing competition in a commercial? In fact, I believe that these types of “subjective” comparisons backfire on the company paying for those spots.
What do you get by claiming your competition is in financial trouble? You may put some doubt in the customer’s mind about them, but if time goes by and that competitor of yours is still around, what does that make you? Reliable, ethical, moral, truthful? Or None of the above?
In the consumer end of the solar industry, the marketing megabucks don’t match the megawatts and there is no certification yet required in major markets. This means that false comparisons and dubious power claims are more prone to happen simply because they can. When a manufacturer specifically excludes marine or RV environments from their warranty, yet a dealer tries to cover that up by claiming to take up the warranty, is that fair competition? Or is it perhaps “smoke”, based on a calculated risk that people won’t claim their solar panels 10 years down the road, or that the dealer will by that time be off selling encyclopedias to unsuspecting old ladies in Arizona? In that case, the retailer is left holding a large bag and we all know that with Sarbanes-Oxley, retailers must ensure to be toeing an ethical line lest their public parent companies be taken to the mat for false accounting of warranties.
The truth will always make the cowboy cookie crumble, and yet it can take time to come out. Patience is a virtue. I hope the cookie is chocolate fudge. They’re my favourites.
Sass