Designers - Do you Think of Success in Competitive Terms?

 

One of my personal life laws is: Run your own race.

What that means to me is that I compete with myself on a daily basis, but I rarely compete with others. It seems somewhat counter productive to me because I have no control over what they are doing but every control over what I'm doing. I evaluate myself on showing improvement in the areas that I'm concerned with.

I also believe that the more successful my knitting professional friends are the more successful I will be. Their success's will ultimately lead to more successful knitters and more successful knitters will lead to more knitters to buy my patterns and take my classes. I don't believe that another designer's or teacher's failure is some sort of a gain for me. At knitting events the attendance of more pros means more knitters will attend, which is good for me.

I'm well aware that many other knitting professionals focus on the competitive nature of the business, and view it as a static market place that they have to fight in to protect their segment. They agonize over things like how knitters seem to choose one pattern provider over another. What makes customers decide to buy one type of needle rather than another? Is it reputation, or image and visibility? Are brand names important? How influential is word of mouth in increasing business? How much depends on reputation or following knitting trends or being active in social media?

I don't have the answers to those questions but I am sure that worrying about what everyone else is doing is unlikely to change much for me in the way I make my business decisions.