Competitor

“ Thus in the sweat of the brow of one of the heroes and philanthropists of this age, was laid the foundation of one of the most extensive business houses that our city now boasts. His competitor saw that no amount of rivalry could crush a man thus self-supporting and gave up the effort. ”

“ They crowded towards the goal, and criticized the appearance of each competitor as, in succession, they advanced, discharged their pieces at the mark, and had their good or bad address rewarded by the laughter or applause of the spectators. ”

“ As the effective competitors grow fewer, not only is the proportion of attention each devotes to the other more continuous and more highly concentrated, but the results of success are [122] more intrinsically valuable, for the reward of victory over the last competitor is the attainment of monopoly. ”

“ Or, to change the metaphor slightly, professional investment may be likened to those newspaper competitions in which the competitors have to pick out the six prettiest faces from a hundred photographs, the prize being awarded to the competitor whose choice most nearly corresponds to the average preferences of the competitors as a whole; ”

“ You forget the most important part of all. 'Preference is to be given to competitors of the name Fraser, Campbell or McLean, provided that such competitor makes at least seventy per cent in his examination.' You don't mean to tell me that you didn't know that! ”

“ But naturally, I always look upon things from the business man’s point of view, and so I always think it better to come to some kind of an agreement with a competitor rather than allow him an unlimited measure of expansion. ”

“ Neither of the two need know anything about the matter until the selection is made. It is eligibility to perform some social function that makes a man a competitor, and he may or may not be aware of it, or, if aware of it, he may or may not be consciously opposed to others. I trust that the reader will bear in mind that I always use the word competition in the sense here explained. ”

“ Learn all you can in an open, fair way, but do not resort to trickery, or [179] to any methods which you would be unwilling to have a competitor use with your house.
The second rule for meeting competition is “Know Competitors’ Goods.” This again involves not only being familiar with the quality and uses of the goods, but with the reputation of the manufacturer and his selling agents, as well as the class of trade to which competitors cater, the class of salesmen they employ, and the ethics they observe in doing business. ”

“ The manufacturer or merchant imitates his competitor, but tries also to surpass him. Indeed it is a truism that competition is the

life of trade. In the shop and in the office, on the road and behind the counter, in all buying and selling, competition is essential to the greatest success. Competition, the desire to excel, is universal and instinctive. It gives a zest to our work that would otherwise be lacking. In every sphere of human activity competition seems essential for securing the best results. ”

“ We have now to bestow the rewards which have been brilliantly won by the most successful competitors in the society’s lists. I say the most successful, because to-night we should particularly observe, I think, that there is success in all honest endeavour, and that there is some victory gained in every gallant struggle that is made. To strive at all involves a victory achieved over sloth, inertness, and indifference; and competition for these prizes involves, besides, in the vast majority of cases, competition with and mastery asserted over circumstances adverse to the effort made. ”

“ Each strives, with all the means at his command—cheap prices, advertisements, long credit, drummers, also secret and crafty detraction of the quality of the goods of his competitor, the last of which is a measure that flourishes particularly at critical moments—to drive all other competitors from the field. ”

“ We speak of competition in business, emulation in scholarship, rivalry in love, politics, etc.; emulation of excellence, success, achievement; competition for a prize; rivalry between persons or nations. Competition may be friendly, rivalry is commonly hostile. Opposition is becoming a frequent substitute for competition in business language; it implies that the competitor is an opponent and hinderer.
Antonyms: AMEND. Synonyms:
To amend is to change for the better by removing faults, errors, or defects, and always refers to that which at some point falls short of a standard of excellence. ”

“ Whenever either labor or capital thus moves to a new place in the group system, it becomes an active competitor of the labor or capital that was already there. We need a definition of the competing process. In the case of producing agents it consists in a rivalry in selling. The laborer who moves from A ́ of the table that, in the preceding chapter, has been used to represent organized industry to B ́, offers for sale, as some would say, his service, or more accurately, the product which his labor can create. ”

“ Or the rules may dictate that the competitor must climb over the obstacle himself and push his bladder or barrel under, taking care not to lose it in the process. Indeed, special rules and directions must be made for almost every obstacle race, the most meritorious set being that which entails most misery upon the competitor. ”

“ For the value of competition is determined by the value of the standards used to measure it. Instead, then, of asking ourselves whether we believe in competition, we should ask ourselves whether we believe in that for which the competitors compete. ”

“ When the business man who fights to secure special privileges, to crowd his competitor off the track by other than fair competitive methods, receives the same summary disdainful ostracism by his fellows that the doctor or lawyer who is "unprofessional," the athlete who abuses the rules, receives, we shall have gone a long way toward making commerce a fit pursuit for our young men. ”

“ Suppose the competitor begins to note that if things go on as they are the sober mechanic will in time be given all the work, for being the more efficient, or that there will come a time when, thanks to his diligence, there will be no work left for either of them. ”

“ Many of the most obvious evils in the particular system of competition now adopted, may be summed up in the statement, that the tests according to which success is awarded, are not so contrived as to secure the success of the best competitors. ”

“ One technique that plays a most important part in this general purpose is competition, or the vying among the specialists for the favor of the community. Although the competitors are motivated by self-interest, each one seeking the custom of his fellow men, the effect of the rivalry is to bring an abundance into the market place, to the greater benefit of Society. To win favor for his offerings, as against the offerings of others in the same line, each competitor tries to improve his capacity for production, as to quantity or quality; each seeks to better his competence. ”

“ Thus their competitors can be put out of business, one by one, wherever they dare to show a head. Inasmuch as they rise up only one by one, these big concerns can see to it that new competitors never come into the larger field. ”

“ Coming to the serious objection as to successful competition, I believe it is true. But is that a reason for driving them out of the Colony? Will such a method commend itself to a body of civilized men? What is it that makes them so successful competitors? He who runs may see that it is nothing but their habits, which are extremely simple, though not barbarous, as The Natal Advertiser would have it. ”

“ Also competition is competition, Aaron, and we ourselves cop out a competitor's trade oncet in a while, too, Aaron, but Greenberg & Sen takes advantage, Aaron. They see that you are fond of that boy Fillup, and certainly it does you credit, because you ain't married and you ain't got no children of your own, Aaron. But it don't do them credit that they work you for business by pretending that they want the boy because he is a smart boy and that they are going to pay him ten dollars a week because he's worth it. ”

“ We note generally the following criteria which the trial court might take into account in assessing the probability of a substantial lessening of competition: the number and power of the competitors in the relevant market; the background of their growth; the power of the joint venturers; the relationship of their lines of commerce; the competition existing between them and the power of each in dealing with the competitors of the other; the setting in which the joint venture was created ”

“ Under the conditions here supposed, the trust will not be able to exterminate a really efficient competitor, and it will feel the stimulus of his rivalry in a way that will force it to be alert and enterprising in seeking and using new devices for economical production. ”

“ But it happens still more unpleasant, when two competitors in one and the same line come together in the same town. And it happens even worse when it’s some chimney sweep and can’t do business himself and spoils business for you too. ”

“ Don’t ignore questions about competitors, and don’t fail to banish from the customer’s mind all doubts and prejudices, but it is a serious mistake to spend a lot of time talking about competitors’ goods, when you ought to be sticking to the merits of your own. Answer quickly all questions, and then switch back to the excellence of what you are selling. Be so enthusiastic about your own selling points that rivalry will be forgotten. ”

“ Here is a fair adjustment between logical competitors, the retention of competition where it is not practicable to eliminate it, and its abolishment where it is feasible to uproot it and establish great operating economies in the wake of the change. ”

“ A certain number of individuals enjoy, in the beginning, equal opportunities to perform certain acts; and in the competition resulting there from some of these individuals or associations obtain advantages over their competitors, or over their fellow-citizens whom they employ or serve. Sometimes these advantages and the practices whereby they are obtained are profitable to a larger number of people than they injure. ”

“ The boy who pushes, and tackles, and runs through a wilderness of other boys who are trying to down him, and get his pigskin away, will become the pushing business man who will go through the line of business progress, and make a touchdown in his enterprise, and he will kick a commercial or professional goal, over the heads of all competitors. ”

“ Such a man is ever on the watch for an opportunity to gain some leverage by which he may raise himself to a level with older-established or richer competitors. If he be a good employer his workmen enter into the spirit of the competition, feeling that promotion will follow on any services they may render. ”

“ Strange as it may appear, the knowledge that they owed place and preferment more to chance or intrigue than to any personal merit or inherited right, instead of lessening the value of the prizes for which all were striving, seemed only to enhance them in the eyes of the competitors. ”

“ But, more frequently than any other cause, I fancy that impatience of the long struggle required for any distinguished success interferes to thin the ranks of competitors for the prizes of public ambition. ”

“ Few will heartily say, "Let our neighbors and competitors develop to their uttermost, and welcome; be it our sole care that we also develop to our uttermost. They shall run us as close as they like, and shall find that we do not mean to be run down." ”

“ Take as a second example, the wholesale paper trade. Here are perhaps three hundred men, each knowing personally many of his competitors and probably hating some of them cordially. Each striving to secure for himself all the trade possible, and to gain, if he can, his rivals' customers. ”

“ Nor is there much danger in prophesying that the higher mental attainments, which the successful competitors must of necessity possess, would be found very advantageous to the public even in the inferior positions which they would have to occupy. ”

“ Where rivalry is not tempered in any way whatever, the charge made by competing roads falls to a level at which returns only cover the variable costs incurred by one of the competitors, though it may return somewhat more in the case of the other. ”

“ which is not from any intrinsic merit, or unalienable right in a particular family, but to avoid the consequences that usually attend the ambition of competitors, to which elective kingdoms are exposed; ”

“ For show me one trade, one profession, wherein one man's success is not based upon another's failure; all rivalry, all competition, triumph and rapture to the winner, disgrace and anguish to the loser! ”

“ So completely obsessed was he with this American sense of competition that he admitted competition even among mountains, and judged of some hundreds of the towering crests of the earth as he would have judged of six American hotel servants who struggled at the station for his bag. There is a very general idea--how general I cannot imagine-- that competition is productive of or conducive to individuality. The defenders of the extreme forms of competition invariably insist upon this argument, that the struggle develops personality and variety. ”

“ You believe in competition. You know that honesty is an outworn policy in your business. It has as little place in mine. I know, too, that you play the stock market; you are, in short, a gambler. Well, then, you prefer chance, and I, skill. ”

“ They said that competition was the mainspring of life; they seemed to think exercise was the goal of existence. A man whom I saw there and who, I learnt, had been chosen to teach the young on account of his wisdom, told me that competition trained the man to sharpen his faculties ”

“ The medium of competition is a series of contests—monthly, quarterly, even yearly which bring into play all the motives urging individuals to maximum effort and industry desire to beat bogy, ambition to win in individual contest with immediate neighbors and against the whole organization, team spirit in

the matching of one group of agencies against another group, and finally organization spirit in the battle of the whole force to equal or surpass the mark which has been set for it. ”