Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Once you start a business, one of your goals should be to keep it competitive and viable. The following contributed post is entitled, Great Ways To Keep Your Business Competitive.

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If you own a business, then you need to be thinking up new ways all the time about how to remain competitive. If you aren’t doing this, then you run the risk of becoming redundant. There are so many things internal to an organization that makes it more efficient and increase productivity. There are ways to make your products seem a lot more desirable to your customers; you can improve your products too. And those are just a few ways. A good business owners know that to stay ahead, they need to change. Nothing stays static, so as long as you are malleable, then you have a chance of staying in front.

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The Competition

If you plan to be out in front of the competition, then it helps if you know what you are up against. So you need to conduct a lot of competitor research, and you need to do this continually. You cannot just do a lot of work in this area and then give up once you feel you know. Researching your competitors regularly will help you move forward. You will see how they change and if they have implemented anything new. By looking at your competitors, you will also work out what your USP is – your unique selling proposition. This is important because this is the thing that you can exploit to show how and why you are different and why your customers should buy from you. Your USP is your strength, and you must use it. You should also look at your competitor with a view to using a few of their ideas too. Look at how they speak to your customer and the language they use. Think about their brand. What type of person does your competitor consider your customer to be? There are so many questions that you should answer. Remember, the better you know your competitor the better you will be able to sell your products.

Your Products

Obviously, if you have the best products, this is a huge selling point. It is definitely a USP too. If your products have unique features or are simply just much higher quality, such as onsemi and their intelligent technology, you need to use this. However, you don’t just suddenly have the best products. You need to work at it. It may be an idea to do some customer research and discover exactly what your customer wants. There are a lot of ways you can get feedback and ideas from your customer. One of the best is to utilize social media. If you haven’t already got a social media presence, then you need one now; social media is the future. So, get online and talk to your customers. Create polls, and ask questions trying to engage your customers. Have a look at your competitor’s social media pages too. You never know what you might find out. Customers know what they want better than we do, so ask them. Most of the time, they would be happy to engage with you.

Technology

In this day and age, technology changes rapidly. It is essential to keep up with these advancements if you are going to remain competitive. You don’t need to incorporate all the new technologies; however, you should at least consider them. Have a look at what new software and hardware may be available that could help your business run more efficiently or provide a better experience for your customer. For example, you could use the John Yokley PTFS system to manage your content. This is a great way to make sure everything is organized and easy to find by your customers. Whatever technology you decide upon, it needs to be something that will add value for your customer; this is the main thing. It has to give them something extra, or it isn’t going to help.

Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Once you business is up and running, you want to determine if you have competitors. If so you, need to determine how to set yourself apart from you competition. The following contributed post is entitled, How To Give Your Business The Competitive Edge.

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Keeping a business afloat isn’t always easy and this is largely due to the threat of the competition. If you don’t take steps to give your business the competitive edge, your nearest rivals could steal away your potential and existing customers and limit your chances of making a profit.

There are a number of things you can do to gain a competitive edge and these include the following.

#1: Improve your SEO

The higher your business website ranks on search engines the better, as you will instantly elevate your business over the competition. This is because customers tend to trust the businesses that rank highly so you will be giving your business the credibility it needs To improve your SEO, you could take steps yourself, such as tweaking your website content to accommodate the keywords your target demographic will be searching for. You could also outsource to web design services akin to WebX360 as they have the know-how to improve your website, manage your content, and elevate your search engine ranking.

#2: Work on your brand identity

Your brand is what sets you apart from other businesses. At a very basic level, it’s about working on your businesses’ physical image, such as the logos and colors you choose to represent your business. However, it’s also about less tangible qualities, such as the values that your business represents. One such value could be care for the environment as this would do much to win over the hearts and minds of those shoppers that prefer to go green with their purchases. Check out our branding tips for more advice and browse our website for any similar topics.

#3: Become an industry expert

If you have worked in your industry for a while, you will have built up quite the knowledge base related to the products and services you provide. You can use this to your advantage by sharing what you know with others. When you do this by speaking at events and conferences, you will increase your credibility with a wider audience. You could create your own podcasts and YouTube videos too, write ebooks, and write informative articles that could be placed on prominent sites online. This is your way to make an impact on the people that use your business and is an excellent way to leverage yourself above your competitors.

#4: Find your niche

If your business isn’t very different from the others in your industry, it’s understandable that your business might get lost amongst the crowd. You need to stand out in some way, as we have discussed within our other suggestions. One way to stand out is to find your own niche, giving people something that isn’t being offered by any of your rivals. To do this, you need to research your competitors, look for gaps in the market, and then fill those gaps if you think there is a demographic for something unique.

Finally

Too many businesses experience failure because of the competition but you don’t have to let this happen to you. By giving your business the competitive edge, you may be able to sidestep failure, as you should be able to attract more customers to your side. Consider our suggestions and then think about the other things you need to do to elevate your business over the competition.