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Competition is healthy, and it pushes us to the best versions of ourselves. It is no different when it comes to business. And while many of us fear competition, the fact remains that it is here with us to stay, and we cannot run away from it. Thus, perhaps the best strategy to deal with business competition is to accept that it exists and face it head-on. But you should steer clear of copying your competitors; this should be a warning rather than an expert opinion. That is because what works for our competitors may not necessarily work for us. That said; what are smart ways to gain an edge over our business competitors.
Keeping Tabs on Competitors
The best way to defeat our enemies is to know their position. In the case of business, position means what our competitors are doing. There are tools to help you see competitors traffic when it comes to their websites, for example, that may help you see if they are doing anything different to you that’s working for them on the marketing front. And while I have forewarned you never to copy your competitors, I want to encourage you to stalk them. Oops! Did I say stalking? Yes, as that is best way to know what our competitors are doing. In so doing, we will be able to know what exactly they do better than us so that we can use that knowledge as a basis to improve our services. This way, we can be able to beat them in their own game. Now that is wow.
One thing to keep in mind as we monitor our competitors’ activities is that we don’t have to physically visit their businesses and ask them what they are doing. With many businesses having websites nowadays, it is easy to understand what our competitors are doing by simply visiting these resource centers. We can even use things like sales coaching to sift through calls looking for keywords (i.e. competitor’s names) and see what people are saying about them – and there’s even AI software available that can do that for us!
Targeting New Markets
New markets are typically naive, so to speak. Yes, they are naive in the sense that they don’t have a trustworthy service provider just yet. That means they are likely to embrace and gain confidence in any service provider that comes to them first. If we happen to be that first provider, then there are high chances that we could win the trust of these new markets before our competitors step foot there. Being the first ones to operate in any new market would put us ahead of everyone else, making it difficult for our competitors to sway the allegiance of our customers. This strategy can work whether you are creating a b2c marketing plan, or looking to master b2b growth marketing for your products/services.
Staying Lean
To stay lean simply means to minimize waste and maximize value. By waste here I mean anything that a customer does not want, while value means all the things that a customer wants to enjoy in a certain product or service. To get a clear idea of what our clients want, it is essential to get some feedback from them. We could achieve this by simply asking them directly to give opinion on what should be improved as far our services and products are concerned. If our patrons feel that a certain product or service feature should be discarded, it is advisable to hid to their opinion, however attractive that feature is. In the same way, you can run a Graphic Design Feedback Test on your website to understand design, color, and theme problems. It could help you provide customers with a clean and smooth interface. Remember, business is all about meeting the needs of customers, not our own needs.
Focusing on Providing Exceptional Customer Care
Right at the core of every business is customer service, and this is something we have been told time without number. As simple as it looks, it has the potential to make or break our business. However, most businesses, including corporations get it wrong when it comes to this seemingly simple aspect, and we can outshine them by simply finetuning our customer care service. One way to do that is to respond to any queries promptly, offer multiple contact avenues, and try using a customer-friendly language.
