How Well Do You Know Your Business Competitors?

I mean those business competitors who you bump up against every day.... Well, knowing who they are is a good start! In this blog we will concentrate on those business competitors who are occupying the same space as you, rather than the wider competition (see my ‘Love thy Competitor’ blog).

Understanding how you stack up against your business competitors is vital for you. If you don’t know then your wonderful plan to become a market leader will quickly fail. Detailed assessment of your market place and customers will have been carried out but without understanding your business competitor’s proposition how can you start to compete with them.

But how can you outperform your competition? Well, knowing what they are great at and identifying their weak points will help you form your strategy. You can do this by setting up a competition matrix.

You’ll need to review and benchmark the following:

1. Estimates of turnover, size and market share
2. Key product /service ranges
3. Routes to market
4. Key selling points
5. Strengths and weaknesses
6. Points of differentiation
7. Who are their customers
8. Customer perception of their performance
9. Trade ranking tables
10. What can you learn from them
11. Industry gossip and rumours - just don’t start or perpetuate and rumours!

Gather the data and information on each competitor, and then benchmark yourself against them using a scoring system. This should highlight clearly where you can ‘beat’ the competition. Next step is to develop the action plans that will help you achieve this.

Do make sure that you get yourself onto their mailing lists, keep a close eye on their website activity, attend industry events and mystery shop them if you can.

Don’t ever, ever make negative comments about your competitors; just articulate where you are different and how you can solve your client’s problems.