Handling Attacks From Your Competition
I recently had a conversation with a retired business owner (very successful) who told me about experiences, good and bad, that he had while building his business. That conversation inspired me to write this article.
If you’re a business owner and you’re experiencing malicious and damaging attacks by competitors, this article is for you. Everything that I have included here is completely true with no exaggeration. This is just a sample of what we’ve experienced for nearly 16 years. You are not alone. This is part informational for you and part therapy for me lol!
We have three competitors that have attacked us one way or another for years. There are others but they are secondary players. They continue to this day.
I sympathize AND empathize. Business owners work long hours and handle many challenges. That’s why only 13% (2023 stats) of Canadians are business owners. It is extremely frustrating when competitors, unprovoked, undermine everything you’ve worked for by posting yet another fake 1 star review. It used to devastate us. Currently we have about 40 fake 1 star reviews on Google alone. These are the ones that Google Didn’t remove. They go back years and the damage they have done to us has been significant. This reduced our Google rating from 4.9 to 4.5, making it almost impossible to ever achieve our true rating again. At Take Time, we know our Google rating will never be higher than it is now. We have a competitor who tracks our reviews and posts a fake 1 star review, just before we go up a rank. That pulls our rank down again. She causes our ranking to be permanently locked. Why? Because we have authority in the industry and charge about $25 per hour Less than she does.
Over the years, they’ve involved a lot of people, friends, family and even employees, to do their dirty work while they stood back and enjoyed the outcomes. They should have considered the possibility that one day they might be “ratted out”–which is exactly what has happened. Their former accomplices have contacted us. First two and then later another two. Maybe they resent being manipulated. Maybe they now have husbands that own businesses who are not at all impressed by what their wives were told to do. Maybe they’re now business owners themselves. Or maybe they’re just older and wiser and now understand that they were used. These former “accomplices” have been a gift to us. After assuring them that we wouldn’t take any legal action, we gained a lot of information and WOW! Unsettling! They connected a lot of dots for us and explained things that we often wondered about.
Sixteen years is a long time. We are veterans. In our case, there isn’t just one competitor there are three (initially two and later a third joined them). They collaborate and they are obsessed with my company. I believe that initially they felt threatened but later it just became fun for them. We used to joke that these women spent their Friday nights bonding while planning their next attacks on us. Fake reviews, disturbing or silly phone calls, interference of all kinds, you name it, all meant to cause damage, alarm us, waste our time, create chaos, and generally harm us personally by harming our livelihood. That’s what they do. They’ve stolen from us, they’ve lied about us, made false accusations online, disrupted our work, and damaged our reputation through our review sites. This may sound familiar to you. If so, we know how you feel. It’s stressful. You don’t know what’s coming next and they love that. They’re bullies and they love the power. The best antidote is your success.
I started Take Time in July of 2009. By September, it had already started. I was advised to document everything. First the alarming phone calls. Then they started sending me on wild goose chases and stealing my business information. At that time, I was doing in home estimates and I had an information folder that I would leave with each home owner. It wasn’t long before it became clear that I was educating my competition. They had people they knew schedule estimates so they could learn my systems and then steal all my pertinent business information. Later, the fake reviews started appearing on Google, Yelp and other review sites, from names that I had never heard of let alone serviced. In fact we searched one name from a fake review and found it on an obituary site from another city, same name and same head shot. They even involved their employees. Some were barely out of high school at that time. Young, vulnerable and impressionable. I continued to document. They were sloppy at covering their tracks at that time and they revealed a lot.
Then one day, one of the trio, actually called me. While on speakerphone, she informed me that she had reached out and become friendly with all the other residential cleaning company owners in Winnipeg. ??? I asked her “Why are you telling me this?” No answer. I guess it was meant to show me how “in control” she was. I thought, Wow! You are a nut! Are we really that threatening to you? I was later told that she is ALL about control.
During Covid they went full on crazy. We had to keep our office doors locked during working hours. I suspect they felt that now would be a great time to apply maximum damage since businesses were already hurting, maybe out of frustration we would just close our business for good. Cease and Desist letters were helpful but then they just changed their tactics. They continued. I could go on and on.
Sixteen years of this is a very long time but the fear of it subsides. What was once alarming, devastating even, is now annoying. The public sees through it, and that reassures me. As long as you’re providing great value and a reasonable price, their efforts won’t really matter because you continue to succeed. Online bullies are everywhere now. Google reviews still matter but people know they aren’t reliable anymore. People are good at spotting fakes. The lived experience that you provide for your clients matters. Good news spreads and it’s a lot more effective than reviews.
Who are they? People ask me when they read all the fake 1 Star reviews on my review platforms. There are 3. They are not franchise owners. Recognizable branding. The most dominant of the trio has a fun cutesy website with a distinct branding colour”, eye watering prices and 100s of 5 star reviews, something that does not align with her exclusive prices. The second, is also notoriously expensive. Her personal story, posted publicly on her website, does not align with her reputation. Certainly, my experience with her and knowledge of her, do not match the saintly message this story seems to communicate. And the third, is a participating member of this click who’s actions have been equally predatory and damaging to us. All 3 collaborate and use their friends to carry out their attacks on us. They’ve been doing this for years. They are deceptive, scheming, and intimidating. Confronted, they will deny, dismiss, play the victim and gaslight. They are experts at this.
My experience may seem extreme but it isn’t. Over the years business owners from various industries have described their own experiences and believe me I’ve heard it all. There are dedicated chat rooms for entrepreneurs on handling this very topic. My advice, is to document, document, document everything and include events, dates, times, names, etc. This is a pain but must be done, very important. Surveillance cameras are also important and should be capable of both audio and visual. Witnesses are extremely important. A good lawyer is a must.
My story might be different from yours. It’s not every business that has a cabal trying to harm you and for such a long time, but even one crazed competitor can be very distressing. My sincere hope is that you will gain some comfort from my story. Use their malice to fuel your determination to be successful.
In closing, I’m grateful. I’ve learned a lot and this experience has made my company stronger, larger and more resilient. It’s also made us more cohesive and more determined. From almost the beginning, Take Time has been very successful and that’s why, I believe, we suffered such wrath from these competitors. We love serving our clients. We love doing what we do. Today we are Winnipeg’s largest and most awarded residential cleaning company with a second location in Edmonton. Hard work, perseverance and determined optimism are the keys to our success. Hang in there. Adversity makes us smarter and stronger.
