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Actual for You - How Unique Is Your Business? A Competitor's Dilemma
Everyday millions of people go to jobs that they can't stand, with bosses that they can't stand, and do exactly what they can't stand doing. In a word, this life sucks. So hopefully in this article I can give you a bit of advice on how to find your dream career.Have you ever gone to work, and as you're supposed to be working, sat day dreaming about something that you'd rather be doing instead. Things such as fishing, quilting, building a new deck? Maybe even some other job title such as being a doctor solving medical cases that will save someone's life.Perhaps you've wanted to be a firefighter since you were a child but just never had the time, or even the guts to apply for the academy.I'm going to assume yes since you're
6. The Perceptions
The short definition of marketing is “managing perceptions.” As you know, perception is often more powerful and real than reality itself. It’s my belief that to a great extent, the winners are those that manage perceptions better.
How are your competitors perceived in the marketplace? How are you perceived? This type of analysis helps you differentiate your business from your competitors. Managing perceptions must be your goal as you develop and apply your marketing efforts.
As you study your competitors, remember the reason for doing it – It’s to establish your “differentiation” over them. Obviously, you need to use common sense as to the degree of differentiation you want to achieve in the marketplace. However, as a rule of thumb, the more distinct you are from your competitors, the better. Do not forget to look at other industries, and how they mar
“Change is inevitable; except from a vending machine” author unknownOnly a few things stay constant in life. For me, one example would be my hair follicles. Last year I was bald; this year I am still bald. The Chicago Cubs haven’t been to a World Series in 100 years, so that never changes. Other than that, we live in a state of constant change.Even Dell Computers is changing. They will now sell computers in retail stores, a marked departure from their previous philosophy. Dell has always been a mail-order and online computer company, with no retail presence. All of their computers are manufactured to your specifications, and it usually takes a few days for the computer to arrive. Now there are more alternatives than acquiring a Dell elec
As an example, take your local Yellow Pages Directory and turn to any section populated with advertisers within the same industry. It can be automobile dealerships, attorneys, or doctors.
Now, study a few pages. You will immediately start to see a common theme, a similar pattern – a pattern of boring uniformity. The great majority suffers from the “me too” syndrome. The prospect looking for services can’t tell why she should but from advertiser A or B. It seems like the only one that benefits here is mostly the sales rep that sold the ad and the editors of the book.
This can also be seen in the way different industries market their products and services. Have you noticed that each industry has a very particular way to market? Look at your industry. Do you and your competitors market in just about the same way? Have you also noticed that when some brave soul wants to innovate and market in a way “different” from the industry’s norm, he is considered a heretic. . . condemned to burn at the stake of the boss’ editing pen?
I call this phenomenon “marketing paralysis.” It’s the inability to make the necessary changes in order to improve marketing results; the inability to break loose from the “business as usual” and the “it’s always been done that way” mindset.
There is a hidden danger when you analyze your competitors in your industry. The hidden danger is overanalyzing and in the process, becoming just like them – accentuating the marketing paralysis.
So, why should you study your competitors? There are six key element to consider when analyzing your competition; and none has anything to do with the emulation of your competitors’ marketing methods. Au contraire! Read on, mi amigo. . .
1. The Reference Point
Establish which is your position within the “brand ladder” in comparison to your competitors. According to Al Ries and Jack Trout’s book, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, the law of the ladder is at play. For each rung of the ladder, there is a brand name. Although you want to be first in the prospect’s mind, the battle is not lost if you fail here. This is why you need to know what is your reference point; that is, your position on the ladder. This will help you select the correct marketing strategies.
2. The Price point.
Do not get hung-up on pricing. Know your product and what you want to achieve. If you are positioning yourself as the best, with the top-of-the-line product or service, then your price must reflect it. Knowing price levels from your competitor’s simply helps reinforce your position. If your competitor is offering just as much value as you do, but for less; then, it’s time to reanalyze your offer.
3. The Message
Is your message clear and distinct from your competitors? Remember our little yellow pages exercise? Did you see how the advertisers’ messages blended? Uniqueness was hard to find, wasn’t it?
When you compare your message to that of your competitors, you are not doing it to put yourself at your competitor’s level. Your task is to identify the boring monotone of your competitors, and stay as far away from it as you can. Your job is to always have the most powerful and unique message – one that is transmitted to your target market in a consistent basis.
4. The Technology
Are you keeping up with the latest technology, research, customer service applications, marketing techniques, and everything else that keeps your business ahead of your competition?
Once again, your goal is to stay a step ahead of the competition, not to emulate it. Knowing the capabilities of your competition helps you keep your feet on the ground, and running the good race.
5. The Good And The Bad
Here is information that will help you propel your business forward in huge leaps; but only if you are honest with yourself.
What’s your competition doing well? How does it compare to what you are doing?
Put your ego aside and strive to truly learn from your competitors. By the same token, take a close look at their errors. It will give you a clear picture of their weaknesses; and therefore, a powerful tool to help you fill those gaps with your enhanced services.
6. The Perceptions
The short definition of marketing is “managing perceptions.” As you know, perception is often more powerful and real than reality itself. It’s my belief that to a great extent, the winners are those that manage perceptions better.
How are your competitors perceived in the marketplace? How are you perceived? This type of analysis helps you differentiate your business from your competitors. Managing perceptions must be your goal as you develop and apply your marketing efforts.
As you study your competitors, remember the reason for doing it – It’s to establish your “differentiation” over them. Obviously, you need to use common sense as to the degree of differentiation you want to achieve in the marketplace. However, as a rule of thumb, the more distinct you are from your competitors, the better. Do not forget to look at other industries, and how they mark
As a computer service company manager, it's your job to motivate your employees. You need to be familiar with the many motivational strategies in order to assure your computer service company runs smoothly. Your business will enjoy more success if your employees enjoy their jobs and feel pushed to do their best.How to Motivate EmployeesA successful motivational strategy will recognize an employee's work, make him feel in control of his job and be satisfying for him. The following techniques can be used to help managers get the most out of their computer service company staff: make the job worker-friendly; evaluate jobs that aren't challenging or are monotonous; involve workers in every aspect of the job, including the planning process.ustry has a very particular way to market? Look at your industry. Do you and your competitors market in just about the same way? Have you also noticed that when some brave soul wants to innovate and market in a way “different” from the industry’s norm, he is considered a heretic. . . condemned to burn at the stake of the boss’ editing pen?
I call this phenomenon “marketing paralysis.” It’s the inability to make the necessary changes in order to improve marketing results; the inability to break loose from the “business as usual” and the “it’s always been done that way” mindset.
There is a hidden danger when you analyze your competitors in your industry. The hidden danger is overanalyzing and in the process, becoming just like them – accentuating the marketing paralysis.
So, why should you study your competitors? There are six key element to consider when analyzing your competition; and none has anything to do with the emulation of your competitors’ marketing methods. Au contraire! Read on, mi amigo. . .
1. The Reference Point
Establish which is your position within the “brand ladder” in comparison to your competitors. According to Al Ries and Jack Trout’s book, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, the law of the ladder is at play. For each rung of the ladder, there is a brand name. Although you want to be first in the prospect’s mind, the battle is not lost if you fail here. This is why you need to know what is your reference point; that is, your position on the ladder. This will help you select the correct marketing strategies.
2. The Price point.
Do not get hung-up on pricing. Know your product and what you want to achieve. If you are positioning yourself as the best, with the top-of-the-line product or service, then your price must reflect it. Knowing price levels from your competitor’s simply helps reinforce your position. If your competitor is offering just as much value as you do, but for less; then, it’s time to reanalyze your offer.
3. The Message
Is your message clear and distinct from your competitors? Remember our little yellow pages exercise? Did you see how the advertisers’ messages blended? Uniqueness was hard to find, wasn’t it?
When you compare your message to that of your competitors, you are not doing it to put yourself at your competitor’s level. Your task is to identify the boring monotone of your competitors, and stay as far away from it as you can. Your job is to always have the most powerful and unique message – one that is transmitted to your target market in a consistent basis.
4. The Technology
Are you keeping up with the latest technology, research, customer service applications, marketing techniques, and everything else that keeps your business ahead of your competition?
Once again, your goal is to stay a step ahead of the competition, not to emulate it. Knowing the capabilities of your competition helps you keep your feet on the ground, and running the good race.
5. The Good And The Bad
Here is information that will help you propel your business forward in huge leaps; but only if you are honest with yourself.
What’s your competition doing well? How does it compare to what you are doing?
Put your ego aside and strive to truly learn from your competitors. By the same token, take a close look at their errors. It will give you a clear picture of their weaknesses; and therefore, a powerful tool to help you fill those gaps with your enhanced services.
6. The Perceptions
The short definition of marketing is “managing perceptions.” As you know, perception is often more powerful and real than reality itself. It’s my belief that to a great extent, the winners are those that manage perceptions better.
How are your competitors perceived in the marketplace? How are you perceived? This type of analysis helps you differentiate your business from your competitors. Managing perceptions must be your goal as you develop and apply your marketing efforts.
As you study your competitors, remember the reason for doing it – It’s to establish your “differentiation” over them. Obviously, you need to use common sense as to the degree of differentiation you want to achieve in the marketplace. However, as a rule of thumb, the more distinct you are from your competitors, the better. Do not forget to look at other industries, and how they mar
Many entrepreneurs launch a new business without carefully analyzing their financial prospects in advance. They think all they need to do is sell enough of a wonderful product to create a profitable business, but this is rarely the case.A budget, when done correctly, is a powerful tool that will help you make better decisions, and give you a picture of what you what you money is necessary in order to be a successful business in the next 6 months, 12 months and longer. Understanding and having a close control over the money needs of your small business is the key to that success and learning how to prepare an accurate budget is one of the first steps.WHAT SHOULD BE INCLUDED IS A BUSINESS BUDGET?• Projected Sales & Rev
2. The Price point.
Do not get hung-up on pricing. Know your product and what you want to achieve. If you are positioning yourself as the best, with the top-of-the-line product or service, then your price must reflect it. Knowing price levels from your competitor’s simply helps reinforce your position. If your competitor is offering just as much value as you do, but for less; then, it’s time to reanalyze your offer.
3. The Message
Is your message clear and distinct from your competitors? Remember our little yellow pages exercise? Did you see how the advertisers’ messages blended? Uniqueness was hard to find, wasn’t it?
When you compare your message to that of your competitors, you are not doing it to put yourself at your competitor’s level. Your task is to identify the boring monotone of your competitors, and stay as far away from it as you can. Your job is to always have the most powerful and unique message – one that is transmitted to your target market in a consistent basis.
4. The Technology
Are you keeping up with the latest technology, research, customer service applications, marketing techniques, and everything else that keeps your business ahead of your competition?
Once again, your goal is to stay a step ahead of the competition, not to emulate it. Knowing the capabilities of your competition helps you keep your feet on the ground, and running the good race.
5. The Good And The Bad
Here is information that will help you propel your business forward in huge leaps; but only if you are honest with yourself.
What’s your competition doing well? How does it compare to what you are doing?
Put your ego aside and strive to truly learn from your competitors. By the same token, take a close look at their errors. It will give you a clear picture of their weaknesses; and therefore, a powerful tool to help you fill those gaps with your enhanced services.
6. The Perceptions
The short definition of marketing is “managing perceptions.” As you know, perception is often more powerful and real than reality itself. It’s my belief that to a great extent, the winners are those that manage perceptions better.
How are your competitors perceived in the marketplace? How are you perceived? This type of analysis helps you differentiate your business from your competitors. Managing perceptions must be your goal as you develop and apply your marketing efforts.
As you study your competitors, remember the reason for doing it – It’s to establish your “differentiation” over them. Obviously, you need to use common sense as to the degree of differentiation you want to achieve in the marketplace. However, as a rule of thumb, the more distinct you are from your competitors, the better. Do not forget to look at other industries, and how they mar
We've noticed that on a well known marketing web site, there is an article with a similar title - just what is marketing? This is a very good question and the answer typically ends up (as it is in the aforementioned article) being a lot of tactics, like advertising, brand management, sales, service, pricing, email marketing, etc. That's a good start, but far from complete.And that's one of the problems with the web. There are lots of web sites out there with people claiming to be knowledgeable about marketing. In fact, if you go to search engines like Google and type in marketing, you'll come up with over 16,000,000 web pages! By the time you've got that many people claiming to be experts in marketing, it's difficult to even know wha
When you compare your message to that of your competitors, you are not doing it to put yourself at your competitor’s level. Your task is to identify the boring monotone of your competitors, and stay as far away from it as you can. Your job is to always have the most powerful and unique message – one that is transmitted to your target market in a consistent basis.
4. The Technology
Are you keeping up with the latest technology, research, customer service applications, marketing techniques, and everything else that keeps your business ahead of your competition?
Once again, your goal is to stay a step ahead of the competition, not to emulate it. Knowing the capabilities of your competition helps you keep your feet on the ground, and running the good race.
5. The Good And The Bad
Here is information that will help you propel your business forward in huge leaps; but only if you are honest with yourself.
What’s your competition doing well? How does it compare to what you are doing?
Put your ego aside and strive to truly learn from your competitors. By the same token, take a close look at their errors. It will give you a clear picture of their weaknesses; and therefore, a powerful tool to help you fill those gaps with your enhanced services.
6. The Perceptions
The short definition of marketing is “managing perceptions.” As you know, perception is often more powerful and real than reality itself. It’s my belief that to a great extent, the winners are those that manage perceptions better.
How are your competitors perceived in the marketplace? How are you perceived? This type of analysis helps you differentiate your business from your competitors. Managing perceptions must be your goal as you develop and apply your marketing efforts.
As you study your competitors, remember the reason for doing it – It’s to establish your “differentiation” over them. Obviously, you need to use common sense as to the degree of differentiation you want to achieve in the marketplace. However, as a rule of thumb, the more distinct you are from your competitors, the better. Do not forget to look at other industries, and how they mar
Heads up to business owners. The recent Federal Reserve short-term interest rate hike was the 15th consecutive increase since June 2004 and the first since Ben Bernanke took over as chairman of the central bank in February.The Fed indicated that even more rate hikes may be necessary in the next few months. "Some further policy firming may be needed to keep the risks to the attainment of both sustainable economic growth and price stability roughly in balance," the Fed said in its statement.Translation: more rate hikes ahead, let’s hope it doesn’t hurt the economy and your business.The target for the federal funds rate is now 4.75 percent, the highest it has been in five years. This overnight bank lending rate affects the amount of inte
6. The Perceptions
The short definition of marketing is “managing perceptions.” As you know, perception is often more powerful and real than reality itself. It’s my belief that to a great extent, the winners are those that manage perceptions better.
How are your competitors perceived in the marketplace? How are you perceived? This type of analysis helps you differentiate your business from your competitors. Managing perceptions must be your goal as you develop and apply your marketing efforts.
As you study your competitors, remember the reason for doing it – It’s to establish your “differentiation” over them. Obviously, you need to use common sense as to the degree of differentiation you want to achieve in the marketplace. However, as a rule of thumb, the more distinct you are from your competitors, the better. Do not forget to look at other industries, and how they market. You will be surprised how much you can apply to your own industry.
Your distinction must show in the way you market your business, the way you conduct your business, and the way you service your customers. Remember, it’s not enough to have a “Unique Selling Proposition;” your whole approach must be unique. Strive for true, creative, practical uniqueness, and your competitors will be guessing what’s the secret of your success.
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