How to get an unfair advantage in busness
When you were at school, did you play basketball? I did. Wasn't very good at it, but I tried. I really liked playing, but would never get picked for the competition teams.
I was just average height and average ability. There were 15 or 16 really tall lads in my year, and as sods law would have it, most were very good basketball players too. There was no hope for a short-ass like me.
These tall guys had a big advantage over me. One I didn't like. An unfair advantage as I thought. There wasn't much I could d about it - just suck it up.
An unfair advantage in business
You know how you hate it when someone has something better to offer your potential customers. Very often that something is a lower price.
Or equally, that something may be a better product, thought we tend not to notice these as much, but they are there as much as we don't like to admit it.
When price is the problem, the temptation is to reduce our price to compete.
And that is a very dangerous game to play!
You see, there can only ever be one lowest price. If you decide to play the lowest price game, you and your business end up in a death spiral.
You lower your price, then one of your competitors lower theirs, and on and on.
I have watched this happen so many times. If you decide to compete on low price - there is always someone willing to go out of business faster. and they drag all the other players down with them.
Many people feel they have no alternative but to chase business on low price, but there are lots of alternatives. Service, quality and product range being the key ones that you might think off.
But there are many more. The big one for me is Marketing. I always like to play my games on marketing. I'll use better marketing and more of it than any of my competitors know about. That way, I'll always get more customers, and generally better customers.
Think of it as being like fishing. Most businesses fish only with one line. The bait that they put on the hook is not usually very good either. Now imagine you are fishing with 5 or 6 lines, and your using a really tasty bait. That's what good marketing does for your business. The more lines you cast and the better the bait, the more you'll catch.
Marketing is an unfair advantage in business
It's very often overlooked as an expensive luxury in most small businesses. And that's probably because it's misunderstood. Most people confuse marketing with advertising.
Marketing done right includes a strategy. Sounds too fancy for your business?? Wrong!
A marketing strategy states clearly who your customer is, the products or services that they look for, what they're prepared to spend and how your gonna get in front of them. Lots more too, but that's enough to get started.
Having a defined marketing strategy makes getting customers easier - because you're clear on what type of customer you want to work with., what you will offer them and at what price.
If you'd like to find out more about how a marketing strategy and what tools and tactics could bring you more enquiries and customers, click here to fill out the contact form and get in touch.