Five rare strategic questions to unlock business growth

Executive overview

Most businesses ask the same questions everyone else asks, and get the same results. The breakthroughs come from questions almost no one thinks to ask. These five questions reframe information you already have — your competitors, your weaknesses, your category conventions — to expose hidden leverage.

The rarest strategic insights come from looking at familiar facts from unfamiliar angles.

Who are you really competing against?

• Your true competitive set is defined by what customers compare you to, not what looks similar to you.
• Eat Natural lost ground competing against health bars but dominated when repositioned against candy bars.
• Ask: what job does our product do, and what else does that same job?
• Identify the competitive set where you have the most leverage — then position there.

Are you following any invisible rules?

• Invisible rules are conventions every player in a category follows without questioning.
• Method cleaning products broke the rule that cleaning brands must use bold, aggressive packaging.
• Beautiful design communicated gentle, eco-friendly values — and opened a new space in the category.
• List everything your competitors have in common, then ask: is each one actually essential?
• When you find one that isn't, breaking it becomes your opening.

Where do you suck?

• Weaknesses you ignore are often sources of untapped competitive advantage.
• Trader Joe's stocks no name brands — a seeming liability that lets them rotate inventory constantly.
• Fresh stock every visit creates a discovery experience no conventional supermarket can replicate.
• Trader Joe's earns more revenue per square foot than any other US grocery chain.
• Ask: what does this weakness enable us to do that we couldn't do if it were fixed?

How do you help your competitors?

• Fighting for the same customers in a zero-sum game is expensive and inefficient.
• Ben & Jerry's and Häagen-Dazs serve different customers despite being nominal competitors.
• Each brand makes the other look more like itself — they strengthen each other's positioning.
• Look at what competitors offer and ask: what would be the natural opposite or balance of this?
• Dividing the market cleanly reduces price competition and marketing spend for everyone.

How do you sell to people who don't want your product?

• Average businesses sell to people already shopping for their category.
• Great businesses find ways to bring in people who haven't considered the category yet.
• Oatly didn't target existing oat milk buyers — they targeted coffee drinkers who were fine with regular milk.
• A barista-optimised product placed in specialty coffee shops normalised oat milk for non-vegans.
• When the category boomed, Oatly owned it — because they had expanded it.
• Ask: who would benefit from this if they tried it, and what is stopping them now?