Behind the ToolBelt is a live, raw, and uncut podcast that brings real, unfiltered conversations about business, leadership, and the entrepreneurial mindset. Hosted by Ty Cobb Backer, CEO of TC Backer Construction, this live show features leaders, innovators, and experts sharing their experiences, strategies, and insights. From building successful companies to overcoming professional and personal challenges, each episode offers valuable perspectives for entrepreneurs and business owners and leaders looking to grow, and make an impact.
One competitor post can make a great leader question everything and that’s exactly why we’re talking about competition, focus, and the decisions we make when our emotions spike. We’ve both felt it: you see a new truck, a new location, a wave of five-star reviews, and suddenly you start rewriting your plan in your head. Nothing in your business changed in that moment, but your attention did, and attention is where strategy either stays disciplined or falls apart.
We unpack why competition can absolutely make you better, but only when you respond the right way. When you’re secure in your values and clear on your vision, a strong competitor becomes a mirror that exposes where your systems, communication, and customer experience can improve. When you’re unsure, competition turns into a magnet that pulls you into price cuts, copycat messaging, overpromises, and short-term “wins” that weaken your brand tomorrow. The real competition isn’t the company across town, it’s the gap between what you say you deliver and what customers actually experience.
We also dig into a simple framework to keep your head straight: competitors belong in the rearview mirror, not the driver’s seat. Study the marketplace on purpose, then lead from your mission. And if you want a moat that’s hard to duplicate, focus on the trifecta that builds durable trust in any home service business: repeat customers, referrals, and reviews, backed by a real process instead of hope.
If this sparks something for you, subscribe to the show, share it with a leader who needs the reminder, and leave a review so more contractors can find it. What’s your biggest distraction right now: competition, comparison, or complacency?
Behind The ToolBelt has merged with the TC Backer YouTube Channel. Everything BTTB and TCB is now in one place. Go to the channel and subscribe.
We have a kind of a belief system that either we're gonna push you up, we're gonna push you out. I don't wanna be around five other people that aren't pushing themselves to succeed. Success isn't about taking, but giving value first. Compensation follows contribution. Always. This is true. Authenticity. It's the truth. Every week, this is our story. We share with you our journey. We share with you our scars. Please welcome your host, Ty Cobb Backer.
Hey, hey, welcome back to Behind the Tool Belt. Everybody, today's episode 355, and Vic has the frickin' studio all pimped out. It's dialed in, bro. You got her. It's good. We got cameras over here. We got cameras over there. I got a monitor over here so I can see what everyone has to say. All good stuff. Welcome back. Welcome back to Be Until Well, everyone. This is the podcast where we talk about leadership, business, culture, community, and what it really takes to keep growing both personally and professionally. And that microphone sounds good. Shit's hot. So today's question is simple. Did the chicken come before the egg? Just kidding. But today's question is, is competition good for you? That is, I think that is an an ongoing debate. And we're gonna we're gonna unpack that today. You know, I think competition can can raise the standard, it can force us to improve our systems, our processes, our service, our communication, our customer experience. But competition can also become a distraction. It can make us spend more time watching another company than building our own. And I'm speaking from experience today. Everything we're gonna talk about today, I've experienced. I've done it guilty of obsessing over what so-and-so said, did content, media, services, products, shit, even their taglines, and and just have obsessed over that stuff. So today I want to talk about that a little bit and how it how has how it has made me, I guess, second guess myself, our strategies, you know, copy somebody else's message, lower our prices, and make decisions based off of fear and instead of vision. I think there's a fine line between being aware of what your competition and becoming obsessed with your competition, and and that is what we're gonna unpack today. So have you ever opened social media and seen that a competitor bought a new truck, opened another location, launched a new ad or posted another five-star review, and suddenly felt like behind. Nothing inside your business has changed in those 30 seconds. Trust me, your team did not become less talented, your customers did not stop trusting you, your plan did not suddenly become a bad plan, but emotionally, something changed. I started comparing. Competition can be a mirror that helps see where we need to improve, but it can also become a magnet that pulls us, pulls our attention away from where it belongs. So, does competition naturally make us better? I believe the answer is it can, but only if we respond to it the right way. Healthy competition, I think, creates like a sense of urgency. When when customers have choices, we cannot become lazy. We cannot assume they owe us their business because we have been around for a long time. And I know I've wrote on that, Laurel, for for a minute. You know, competition reminds us that that we still have to earn trust. We still have to answer the phones. We still have to show up when when we say we're going to show up. We still have to communicate clearly, you know, and and we have to we have to still train our people. We still have to stand behind our work, we still have to provide a great experience. A strong competitor can expose where we have become too comfortable. And that can be a good thing, it's not a bad thing necessarily, but competition does not automatically improve us. Sometimes it simply reveals who we already are. If if we are secure in our values and clear about our vision, competition can actually sharpen us. If if we are insecure, desperate, or unsure about who we are, competition can cause us panic, okay? And panic creates bad decisions. Been there, did that. Instead of like improving our value, we we cut our prices. Instead of improving our process, we make promises we can't keep, right? Instead of staying disciplined, we we chase whatever looks exciting that week. Man, and I used to change direction as as the wind would blow. You know, but I think the goal, the goal is not to eliminate competition. I don't think that at all. I believe I believe competition is healthy, whether within your organization or outside. The goal is to make sure competition is sharpening us, not controlling us. Okay, so that that brings me to, I guess, my
next question. Okay, who are you really competing against? Yes, there are other companies in our market. Customers may compare our price, our reviews, our warranties, our responses, our reputation, and the way that we present ourselves. Okay, we shouldn't pretend those comparisons do not exist because they do. But the company across town should not become the center of our strategy or our attention. There will always be somebody cheaper, okay? I don't care. There's always gonna be somebody louder, bigger. There will always be somebody with with more trucks, more followers, or a larger advertisement budget. Okay, that's always gonna happen. But if your confidence depends on always being ahead of everybody in every category, you're never gonna have peace. Okay. And I'm and again, I'm speaking from experience. You'll never have focus. The real competition is is the gap between who you say you are and what your customers actually get to experience. Do we deliver what we promise? Are we better than we were a year ago? Is our people growing? Is our systems improving? Are we becoming easier to do business with? Or are we living are we living our our values when it's difficult? Not only when it's convenient, that is the competition that matters most. Hopefully that makes sense. I know at TC Backer we talk about being different by design. We we cannot be different by design if we were constantly tracing or chasing somebody else's design. Okay. We have to know who we are, we have to know what we stand for, we have to know the kind of experience we want people to have with us. And then we have to become more consistent at delivering that experience. You know, a strong competitor does not have to be your enemy. I I got a lot of people in the area that that I that I'm acquaintances with. I wouldn't say I'm best friends, but for instance, our our swing for recovery, we had multiple roofing companies donate and golf in in our golf event. We had every single distribution in our area at our golfing event. We had ABC, we had SRS, we had Universal, we had JNL. List goes on. We had different shingle manufacturers, we had different siding manufacturers. At some point in time, you have to realize that collaboration is much better. What what what's the how's that saying go? When all ships, when, when, when tides rise, all ship, all ships rise at high tide or or or whatever, however that that's that saying goes, would it be safe to say that you are always competing against yourself, whether you want to recognize or not? Of course. And you should be. That's a good point. Right. I think I think your your competition can reveal our weakness. I think they they can show you that there's a higher standard possible, okay. You can respect what another company does well without allowing the company to define you.
Okay. So how much attention should you pay to your competition? Here's how I think about it. Your competition belongs in the rear view mirror, not in the driver's seat. Okay. You need the rear view mirror in your car. It would be irresponsible to drive without knowing what is around you, right? But you cannot drive safely while staring into the mirror the entire time. You glance at it, right? You kind of look up, take a look, wheels back on the road, right? You gather the information that you need, and then you put your eyes back on the road in front of you. Okay. It is wise to understand your marketplace. We talk about it all the time here. Know what customers are being promised, know what customers are praising in reviews, know what they are comparing or not just necessarily comparing, but complaining about. Know how expectations are changing. Buyers' expectations are changing all the time, and that's something that I paid close attention to. But schedule that awareness. Okay? Carve some time out, don't obsess over it, don't make it a freaking whole whole weekend or whole week, you know, work week long. Do not live inside of it. If every time a competitor changes an offer or posts a video or launches a new campaign, don't change your direction. Okay. Stay the course. Your team needs a steady vision. That's one thing I've learned the hard way. They need to know what you are building and why we are building it. Okay. They should not have to wonder whether this month's strategy will disappear because I saw another company doing something different online. Now, I'm not saying that I haven't done that, but usually there's been some thinking about it. I'm not saying in years past that I haven't done some sort of knee-jerk reaction and not necessarily a bad thing. And if anything else, I learned from it, right? We need to learn from the marketplace, but lead from our mission. I said something in the beginning, okay, that I really want to emphasize.
We should be obsessed with our brand. Okay. I do not mean obsessed with looking impressive, and I do not mean obsessed with putting our logo on everything just to feed our ego. Okay. I mean obsessed with making sure our brand is visible, clear, trusted, and consistent. Okay. Obsessed with making sure our brand is visible, clear, trusted, and consistent. That's a gold freaking nugget that will keep you in business for decades. Write that down. Anyone that's listening, I don't care if you work for somebody, I don't care if you're an entrepreneur, I don't care if you're thinking about going into business for yourself. The biggest lesson I've learned is the consistency in which we present our brand and everyone around us. Okay. Are we showing up where people can see us? When people need the services we provide, do they know we exist? Do they know that we even exist? Do they know what services that we provide? Is it clear? Is it consistent? Okay. When they see our name, do they understand what we stand for? I hope so. Does the experience match the message? I emphasize that a lot here with our team. Because our brand is not only our logo, our colors, or our trucks. The brand is the feeling people have after interacting with our company. It is how quickly the phone was answered. It is whether the salesperson listened. It is whether the crew respected the property. It is whether the customer received updates. Down to the final payment. Your brand is what people say about you when your truck is no longer sitting in their driveway. Visibility gets considered. Trust gets chosen. Experience gets you remembered, good or bad.
And that brings me to what I call the trifecta. Okay. I'm sorry if some of those on my team are tired of hearing this. But in order for me to get it through everybody's head, I have to say it at least seven times before, four times before they even start to consider it serious or not. But then seven times, usually by the seventh time, things start to set in. Of course, I will say it seven more times and then seven more times and then seven more times. Because I'm getting better at it too. And I want to share what I've learned with the team. Right? So the trifecta. Three. Okay. If we are winning in those three areas, we should not have to spend every day worrying about our competition. That's why I brought that up. Okay. A repeat customer says, you earned enough trust for me to invite you back to my property. A referral says, in their mind, I trust you enough to put my own reputation on the line and introduce you to someone I care about. Okay. Reviews. Reviews say, I am willing to publicly attach my name, their name, to the experience I had with your company. Those are powerful votes of confidence, my man. And in our industry, a repeat customer does not necessarily mean somebody is buying another roof next month. Okay. It may mean they call us for siding, gutters, windows, decks, doors, another property, or a project for a family member. It may mean that years later, when another need comes up, we are still the first call. Referrals multiply trust. A cold lead, okay, may ask, can I trust this company? A referral customer often begins the conversation thinking someone I trust already trusts this company. That is a completely different starting point. And reviews create public proof. Okay? They show the next homeowner that our promises are more than marketing language. But here's the important part. You do not win the trifecta by hoping customers remember you. You have to build a process around it. Stay in touch. Ask for the review at the right moment. Make it easy for someone to refer you. Follow up after the job. Remind customers about the other ways that you can serve them. Respond quickly when something goes wrong, because it will. The trifecta is not a marketing trick. It is a result of creating an experience worth repeating, talking about, and reviewing. When repeat business is growing, referrals are consistent, and strong reviews continue to come in, you are building something a competitor cannot easily duplicate or copy. A community of customers who believe in your brand is what you're building. Okay.
Which leads me to another important question. When does learning from a competitor become copying? Okay. There's nothing wrong with learning. Nothing wrong with that at all. That's what this podcast is all about. Every strong leader studies. Okay. Every strong business pays attention to what is working. Okay. But there's a difference between learning the principal and copying the personality. Maybe another company is doing a great job with educational videos. Okay. The lesson is not let's copy their videos. The lesson is customers value education, right? How can we educate them in a way that sounds like us? That sounds like us. Maybe another company responds to leads extremely quickly, right? Let's copy the lesson is let's not copy their exact uh script, right? The lesson would be speed matters. How can we improve our response time? Okay, maybe another company has has a strong community presence. Okay. The lesson there would be let's not necessarily copy their event, but people value companies that support the community. What cause we got to figure out like what cause genuinely fits our mission, our people, and our story? Okay, we don't have to copy their events, okay. Copy copying may get attention for a moment, okay, but it does not build identity. Okay, so we gotta ask ourselves what is the principle behind what we are all doing? What are we doing well? Then figure out how to apply that principle, okay, in a way that is authentic to our brand. Okay, learn broadly, think deeply about this, then build it, build it in your own voice, okay? Can wanting to win, I guess, can wanting to win lead us to bad decisions? I'm a competitive person. Okay. If you didn't know, I believe competition can bring out our best when it matters most. Okay. But winning without guide rails can become dangerous. We may take work that is not a good fit because we don't want somebody else to get to work. Okay. We may cut the price so low that we win the job but lose the ability to serve the customer well. We may overpromise a timeline. We may hire too quickly. We may spend money for appearances instead of return. Okay. We may enter into a market we're not prepared to support. Okay. We may even speak negatively about competitors because we think tearing them down will somehow lift us up. Okay. That's not winning. You can win the bid and lose money. You can win the customer and lose your team. You can win the month and damage our reputation. Okay. And again, I've learned all this the hard way. A decision that makes you look successful today but weakens the brand tomorrow is not a freaking win. All right. Our values have to remain within the guide rails. Okay. We should definitely want to win, but but we should want to win the right way. Okay.
So let's do the audience poll. Okay. Who should you really compete against? Is it your competitors? Yourself, industry standards, or nobody. Put your answers in the comments. I love this. I'm getting really good feedback. And I think most of you who know me know that my answer would be yourself, the six inches between my ears. Your competitors can give you information. Okay. Industry standards can give you a baseline. Okay. But your greatest responsibility is to improve the standard you set yesterday. Can we communicate better than we did yesterday? Can we follow through more consistently? Can we develop our people more intentionally? Of course we can. Can we create a better customer experience? Absolutely. Can we become more disciplined with our systems and commitments? Absolutely. That is the competition we can control. Everything that I just mentioned. Okay. And I would not choose nobody. Okay. As your answer. I wouldn't choose that. I don't think anybody on here chose nobody. Okay. I think that sounds, I think that's pretty arrogant. I'm not competing against nobody. I think I probably have said that. And I would not, I repeat. Pete, repeat, Pete, and repeat. Nobody. Because when we stop challenging ourselves, okay, comfort has a way of becoming complacency. I think I just talked about that in a meeting yesterday morning for a little bit. It's easy to become complacent, very comfortable, especially when times are good. Good times create weak companies, hard times create strong companies. Remember that. Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting for. Okay.
So how do you know when healthy competition has turned into an obsession? Okay. I think healthy competition should make you curious. Okay. Obsession makes you, from my past experience, resentful. Healthy competition helps you improve your plan. Okay. Obsession makes you abandon the plan. Okay. Healthy competition keeps the customer at the center. Okay. And I think obsessing puts the competitor at the center. But healthy competition causes you to examine the standards. Okay. Obsession causes you to measure your worth by somebody else's highlight reel. And here may be the clear sign of all. Okay. If your team talks more about your competitors than it talks about your customers, your focus is in the wrong place. Okay, let me repeat that. If your team or your leader are talking more about your competitors than it is our customers, our focus is in the wrong place.
So my challenge for the week, okay. I think we should spend less time checking what another company is doing and more time walking through our own customer journey. Okay. Search for your company the way a homeowner would. Okay. Look at your messaging. Call your own phone number. I did that. I've done that. Nobody picked up. The number no longer existed. It was one of our tracking numbers. I don't know what it was all on, but we had to figure it out. It was about a year ago. Started calling all of our numbers. We have tracking numbers. We want to know where things are coming from. So call your own phone number. See if someone answers. See how long it took them to answer. See if you had to leave a message. That's a big no-no. Okay? Get a call center if you need one. Review our follow-ups. Read the proposal. When's the last time we actually tore the proposal apart and pulled things out and added things in? Things might be different this month. We may not be providing a service that's still on the proposal. There could be a fine print that we forgot to add or still in there that no longer applies today. Okay. Examine the communication customers receive before, during, and after the job. Okay. Ask yourself three questions. Okay. Are we easy to find? Are we easy to trust? Are we easy to refer? Then look at your trifecta. How many customers came back? How many new opportunities came from referrals? We track that every week. I hear those numbers. Okay. How many customers left a review? I would say if we're weak anywhere, it would be in the review process. I'm not hundred, I have pretty good ideas why. Because I haven't hired someone to actually go do it yet. I'll leave that there. How many customers left a review? What are we strong at? Okay. What are we inconsistent on? Getting reviews. What part of experience? What part of the customer experience do we need to improve? Okay. That will that will do more for our future than any another hour scrolling through a competitor social media page. Competition should wake you up, but it should not steer, it should not steer you. It should raise our standards, but it should not erase our identity. Okay? It should push you forward, not pull you sideways. So I will leave you with this today. Closing question. Is competition pushing you forward or distracting you from where you are going?
Okay. Thank you guys for joining us. This is episode 355 of Behind a Tool Belt. If this episode made you think about how you're leading, building your brand, or measuring success, share it, share it with somebody you know, share it with another leader, business owner who may need to hear this. And while we're talking about the trifecta, reviews, referrals, and repeat listeners help this show grow. So follow the show, leave us a review, and share this episode with somebody in your circle. And remember, know the marketplace, respect the competition, stay obsessed with your customers and brand, and keep becoming better than you were yesterday. Till next time, keep leading, keep building, and keep showing up different by design.
