CHALLENGING THE COMPETITION

The small business world is a challenging place to be, and unfortunately, small business owners neglect the opportunity to grow their businesses by building upon the deficiencies of their competition.

Competition is listed by many small business owners as one of their biggest challenges in growing and reaching profitability in their businesses. Competition is recognized as existing but seldom is the competition studied to see how it can help you grow.

Technology has been a boom to small business but it has also left them vulnerable to “competition”: Websites are a must for any kind of small business and much information is revealed in order to “sell” our products and services. I don’t, however, believe that many small businesses take advantage of this “free” information to grow their businesses.

Let’s look at some of the useful information we can gather about our “competition”

✔ Pricing: while I don’t believe that any small business should compete on pricing, it is useful to know what the competition has.

✔ Most good competitors state their “value proposition” on their website sharing their benefits and “strong points.” Knowing this information will allow you to generate offerings that not only include what the       competition offers but to offer other benefits.

✔ By navigating a competitor’s website you can find out some great information:

o   How easy it is to navigate and how you can make your site better
o   How easy it is to order or to subscribe to a business and make yours better
o   How up to date the information is and make yours better
o   Find out if they have a newsletter and offer one or design a better one
o   How easy it is to communicate with the business and make your easier
o   How many reviews do they have and add more on yours.

There are many other benefits. Perhaps you can discover something that you can add to your business offerings that you have not thought of. The point is for you to always stay abreast of what your competition is doing so you can stay at least one step ahead.

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Tips & Advice by Nick Petra, CFP – Founder of Strategic Duck and BizQuack