Being One Step Ahead!

How well do you know your competitors? How many times do you keep an eye on what they’re doing? Are they stealing a march on you and if so how are they attracting customers? Many small to medium size companies are limited on time and because of this are not as knowledgeable about who their main competitors are as they should be, but finding out what makes your competitors tick and keeping one step ahead of them is sound marketing strategy and gathering of intelligence about them puts you and your company in a very strong position - information is most definitely power.

Here at The Plum Consultancy we help a number of clients identify their core competencies, understanding what it is that clients uniquely value when doing business with them. ‘Me too’ businesses with nothing unique to distinguish themselves from the rest of the competition are doomed to compete on price. The only thing they can do to make themselves the customer’s top choice is to drop price and as other ‘me too’ businesses follow suit, profit margins become thinner and thinner. This, as we all know, is unsustainable in the long term with many failed businesses resulting.

So how do you compete effectively? First of all look at who is competing against you, draw up a profile of what they offer and what you offer and if there are any points of difference in what you make available or how you provide it. Then focus on the following three main areas to distinguish yourself from the rest:

Relevance: something that strongly influences a customer to choose your company over everyone else. Do you know why customers deal with you rather than Jo Blogs down the road?

Difficulty of Imitation: consider things that your business does better than anyone else because you have certain things in place which your competitors don’t have; this could be industry qualifications that your staff has, length of time being established, awards your business may have won, your delivery of customer service, etc.

Breadth of Application: consider how your core competencies can be further applied to the market place, not just how they will be supported in terms of advertising, pr, web but also what markets they can be applied to in order to broaden your reach and increase your sales and profitability.

Once you have answers to all of these areas, you can then consider how you get your messages out there and win increased custom away from your competitors.

Don’t let others steal a march, get your act together and be one step ahead. If you need help with any of the above, visit www.theplumconsultancy.com