"Do nothing" is not called a competitor, it's called a barrier of entry.

"Barrier to entry" of a market is the cost in time and money it takes to become a possible source of a solution in a customer's mind. "Do Nothing" and "Do it yourself" are still very viable options for consumers even for competitors who have successfully managed to enter a market.

There is a distinction between competitors and alternatives; "do nothing" is the latter. I'm not foolish enough to think there are no alternatives, but I do believe there are no competitors to my service right now.

Look, I'm not trying to argue with you. I've been in a spot with ideas that didn't have competitors too. First thing I was told was that there's always competition.

Now you can look at it as alternatives, but if you are competing with these other alternatives in the mind of the prospect, guess what? They're your competitors. Alternatives that people have to doing your thing is called your competition, even though it might not have a logo and an office.

You can split hairs and try to call it something else, but that's the way I was taught. And I don't think splitting hairs will help much. You are in competition with the status quo, with inertia, with the tried-and-true. Your main goal is to get people to try something new. As far as I know this is a well-established piece of sales and marketing knowledge.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Sell-More,-Make-More-by-Knowing-Yo...

http://www.businessknowhow.com/marketing/knowcomp.htm

http://opinionatedmarketers.blogspot.com/2006/12/other-day-f...

I think you've got a good idea. Good luck with the implementation.

Interesting. I'm starting to see a lot of business-related terms that mean different things to different people in different fields (for instance, "securities" means "bonds" to a tax accountant, but "stocks+bonds+etc" to a financier). I'll certainly be careful with such distinctions when talking with investors, clients, etc.

Thanks for the input.

Yeah it's a biz term.

Perhaps non-intuitive, but the point is that you have to figure out how you are getting customers, whether that is changing their mind from "option X" to your service, or changing their mind from "doing nothing" to your service.

Some businesses don't bother to do that work, instead just saying "I have no competition" -- I'm sure you know that you don't want to go there.

As a side note, I'm really curious as to why I was down-modded up above there. I was simply trying to share stuff I know. Don't know why it would tick anybody off. People are welcome to have different opinions, and I'd like to hear about them instead of getting down-modded. If I'm wrong, I want to know about it! (That's kinda the point of commenting to begin with)