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You need to know who are your competitors to your home business.
It is just not possible to run a business, whether home business or not, without
finding someone who are selling products similar to yours. In other words, you
must treat your home business exactly the way you run a company and competitor
intelligence is required to fine tune your products..
Seeking Out Your Competitors.
The best way to seek out your competitors is to try and buy whatever product or
service it is you’re planning to sell. Enter the market as a customer, and find
out what options you would have.
Where to Look.
A Warning for your home business! Do not depend entirely on search engines to
gather information about competitors. Some of the search results may not have
indexed your arch rival or it may listed on the hundredth page.
It might be tempting to just use a search engine and go by the results that
turns up, but you have to remember that plenty of business still takes place
outside the Internet. You should also make sure that you pay attention to more
traditional methods of advertising, such as the yellow pages, or your local
newspaper. It’s worth cutting out and keeping any ads you find, as they can be
good to refer to when it’s time to start your own marketing.
Do What They Do, But Differently.
Notice that I said ‘differently’, not necessarily ‘better’. Don’t assume that
you’ll be able to improve on established businesses if you’re doing the exact
same thing as they are – they have years of experience, after all. What you’re
trying to do is distinguish yourself in the marketplace, so that people who are
looking for something specific in your chosen industry will come to you.
There are a number of tried-and-true ways of altering existing products to
make them succeed in the market.
The Price-Quality Line. You may find other businesses that only offer a
very high-quality service, and accordingly charge a premium price – or you might
find ones that only offer heavily-discounted rubbish. Consider taking their
products to the opposite end of the market. If you can offer a product of only
slightly worse quality at half the price, then people will jump at it and,
likewise, there are always people willing to pay the most to get the best.
So be aware of the price-quality line that can help you with your home
business and in achieving higher volume of sales than your competitor.
Provide a Service. It is perfectly possible to sell products of the exact
same physical quality while providing a better service – to the customer,
quality and service are almost the same thing. There are companies out there who
can sell computer software that their customers could get almost for free,
simply because the customers like to have the support services that they get
with their purchase.
In fact, providing exemplary service is one factor that can turn the tide in
favor of your home business. Look at IBM for example.
Likewise, if service is all you do, then it should be pretty simple to
provide a more attentive and personal service than your competitors. ‘One-on-one
business’ gives you a great opportunity to become friendly with your customers,
and that’s often worth its weight in gold to them.
Strategically, it is better for a business owner to concentrate on customer
service as a USP. You can not compete with the giants in the market but you can
make up for it with your rare brand of service.
Make it Simpler. Many businesses offer great products, but they’re
pitching them to very technical customers. If you are an expert in your field,
you will very often find that you can build a great business simply by selling
the same thing as your competitors, but going to some trouble to explain and
market it to a wider section of the public. Anytime you start using some new
technology, the chances are that someone along the way had to work out how to
make it simpler. Few new technologies or inventions come pre-packaged for
consumer use.
It may take some time to digest all these concepts home business that we have
listed here. But make an effort. That's the only way you can get a complete
understanding and the right picture of home business to make it competitive.
Change the Design. Make it smaller, or change the color, or make it
easier to open and fix. There are all sorts of ways to subtly redesign a product
and give it all sorts of bells and whistles that customers will really
appreciate. You might even be able to buy products, modify them, and then sell
them on.
Build Alliances.
Did you know that many products on the Internet home business scene are
competitive but they co-operate each other in promoting each others product.
This is actually strategic alliance in action.
Despite what the word might lead you to think, you don’t always have to be
competitive with your competitors. You might find that they have extra work
sometimes that they would not mind sending over to you, or you might find that
they’re willing to give you advice on starting up (if not for free, then perhaps
for nothing more than the cost of a few drinks!). Of course, you shouldn’t go
giving away all your secrets or giving them any other advantage, but that
doesn’t mean that you should keep away. Pay special attention to any problems
that they say they have had, or anything they do that seems to sell especially
well.
This way both of you will win and your home business benefits in many ways. One
of them being not to spend extra money on extra advertising to to check mate
your competitor.
Believe it or not, your competitors can be your best allies in this home
business game, especially if they are in home businesses themselves – over time,
your competitors might even become your friends.
Hoe these special tips on competitors was useful to your home business. Many
articles written by practicing home business owners are available on this site
for free. Use them!
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