Your competition helps you build your business, work harder and dig deep to find your USP.
Some businesses fear the competition and get off track when new competition arrives or when they want to get into a business that has to much competition.
The fear throws the business owner into a frenzy and instead of staying focused and creating a plan they are try to protect them selves using things that don't work and it turns into a street fight and the worst thing you can do is bad mouth the competition. There is a better way!
Compare sales figures from previous years to identify a trend. If you don't have data from previous years try to contact others in your industry, to see if the same problem exists. A quick and easy way is to forum in your relating to your business and post your question. Type in YOUR BUSINESS+FORUM in your favorite search engine and you should be able to retrieve a some favorable results.
Find What's Missing.
The way to overcome problems with the competition is to find what's missing, done poorly in the industry that your customer would benefit from.
For Example:
Overnight Delivery Open Sundays 24 Hour Service Guaranteed lowest Price or It's Free Return anytime No Interest financing, no money down No Credit Check As Long as you have a job your approved
Make Sure your competition can't copy or easily counter your idea
Finding what's missing should be addressed to build your business, this will strengthen you business. You should be cautious that you don't build on something and spend a lot of money and have your competition easily copy your findings.
Examples from above:
Overnight Delivery - can be counter to same day delivery Open Sundays - can be copied 24 Hour Service - can be copied Guaranteed lowest Price or It's Free - this is a strong guarantee most will shy away from etc.
Build on Your Findings
Once you find this unique angle that can't be copied easily, then you build on it. In your actions in your advertising and by word of mouth. You may even make it your USP.
