This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The 10X Rule" by Grant Cardone. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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What is the 10X method? Why does the 10X method think you shouldn’t try to compete, and should dominate instead?
In The 10X Rule, Grant Cardone says competition is a limiting concept. For extraordinary success, you shouldn’t worry about competing with others and focus instead on domination.
Read more about the 10X method and how domination and competition are different.
The Problem With Competition
A tenet of capitalism is that competition is good. While that may be true from a consumer standpoint (it can create more choices), when your goal is extraordinary success, competition is a limiting concept. For 10X success, you need to dominate, not compete.
When you’re competing with others, you’re focused on what they’re doing, which makes it difficult to think outside the box. The most successful people and companies look forward rather than at what others are doing—they create rather than copy or improve.
(Shortform note: For venture capitalist Peter Thiel’s thoughts on why competition is destructive, read our summary of his book Zero to One here.)
Focus on Domination in the 10X Method
Here are some ways to dominate rather than compete:
- Do what no one else is doing either because they can’t or won’t. This creates a space in the market and gives you an advantage. For example, Cardone created a new sales process called “information-assisted selling.” Expand into areas where others are pulling out. Adopt “only practices”: things only your company does.
- Don’t play by others’ rules. Norms and traditions hinder innovation. Your solution should be the only one that people—including your competitors—think of. For example, Xerox so dominated the copier market at one point that copying was referred to as Xeroxing. Similarly, Cardone’s goal was to make his name synonymous with sales training.
- Learn from would-be competitors, but don’t emulate them. Walmart founder Sam Walton visited other top-performing chains to see what they did well—then dominated at those practices to such an extent that the others dropped them. He turned others’ specialties into his own unique advantages.
- Outwork everyone else. Although you may have fewer resources to promote your business, you can do 10 times as much social media posting, cold calling and visits, email solicitations, and networking. Act at levels others consider over the top or unreasonable.
Devote all of your thinking and actions to dominating your market in the 10X method, not competing.
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Here's what you'll find in our full The 10X Rule summary :
- How to set goals that are 10 times bigger than average
- How to use extraordinary thinking to achieve extraordinary results
- The 3 myths that will sabotage your chances of success if you let them
