5 Reasons Why Your Competitors Are Getting The Drop On You!
What better way is there to improve your finances and your career than by going into business for yourself? Many fear that giving up the rat race and starting down the path of entrepreneurship means surrendering your career and your fortune to the whims of fate.
In reality, however, entrepreneurship allows you to take control of your career, your livelihood, and your financial wellbeing. You’ll never need to worry about falling out of favor with your boss, watching your employer run the business your work for into the ground with bad decisions or getting lost in the shuffle of corporate restructuring.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that going into business for yourself guarantees wealth and good fortune. If it did, everyone would be doing it. But it does allow you to succeed or fail on your own terms. When you have your sights on success, one of the things you have to be highly cognizant of is competition.
Many new entrepreneurs fear competition, but it should actually be embraced. It can improve your business and encourage you to be at the competition. No business owners can afford to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to their competition. It can only get the better of you when you allow it to.
With that in mind, here are some ways in which your competition may be getting the drop on you if you take your eye off the ball…
You’ve forgotten to carry out competitor analysis
When starting out in business, it’s understandable that you’d want to keep your eyes firmly on your own work. However, while noble this can create a rod for your own back.
How can you ensure that you offer a better experience for your clientele than your competitors if you don’t know what they’re doing?
Competitor analysis is absolutely integral to maintaining a foothold in the competitive world of 21st-century business. It allows you to identify things that your competitors are doing well where you could improve while also helping you to identify gaps your competitors are leaving in the market into which you can neatly fit.
They’re investing more in marketing and SEO
You may assume that it’s enough to simply do everything operationally better than your competitors. Yet, while operational excellence will certainly give you a leading edge, how can customers know how much better you are if they have no idea where you are and what you do?
Do McDonald’s make the best hamburgers?
Does Starbucks make the best coffee?
Heck, no!
But what they do have is extraordinary marketing savvy and knowledge of how to build a brand that resonates with their target market. The simple truth is that your competitors don’t need to be as good as you if they make their brand more ubiquitous.
You can either bemoan this or take action! Consult with a digital marketing / SEO company like Netsearch Digital Marketing.
Not only can they help you to refine your Search Engine Optimization to position you above your competitors in search engine results, but they can also help you to compose marketing materials that resonate with your target market. So you should definitely consult your local SEO agency like this SEO Singapore company if you are looking for proven results.
They leverage influencers
Speaking of marketing, there’s one form of marketing that a lot of smaller brands tend to overlook, but it can be extremely effective in getting the trust and attention of your target market… And that’s influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing can be tremendously effective as it leverages social proof. Consumers trust the word of other consumers more than they trust anything that brands say about themselves.
And influencers are just that… High profile consumers with a built-in reputation and trust that brand simply cannot buy.
We tend to think of influencer marketing as the domain of big brands, but small businesses can get in on the action, too. Fundera has a really useful guide on leveraging influencer marketing for small business.
They have less employee turnover
There are many reasons why customers keep coming back to your business time after time. But while some may have a genuine connection to your brand, more are likely to have a meaningful connection with your employees.
Customers can often have a favorite employee who embodies everything they like about your business, and they can become lukewarm when that employee moves to new pastures.
Your competitors may have taken greater steps than you to reduce employee turnover. Ensure that your employees are well trained, properly motivated, developed, incentivized and well remunerated and you won’t have to worry about losing their talents to your competitors.
They reward customer loyalty better than you do
Finally, nothing retains customers better than a customer rewards scheme that gives them more of what they want most from you. If you haven’t implemented a customer rewards scheme, now is the perfect time to pilot one.
If you have, you may need to ask yourself if it can be more to get your customers coming back through your doors time after time.
Are your competitors getting the drop on you?
