Creating Your Competitive Advantage
All businesses and organizations have one shared theme that they must always be aware of, and that is competitive advantage. Knowing your business’s or organization’s competitive advantage over its competitors is an area of concern that many business leaders must address in order to foster a viable, sustainable, and scalable business model.
Competitive Advantage should be a key part of your initial business planning and should be addressed on a regular basis, such as bi-weekly, monthly, or at minimum quarterly to ensure that you are steering your business in a manner that maintains your competitive advantage over your competitors.
“Competitive advantage is a company's ability to perform in one or more ways that competitors cannot or will not match.”
~ Phillis Koler
To develop your competitive advantage plan, there are several steps that must be taken. To start, you must complete a thorough competitive research and collect competitive intelligence on your chosen industry and on your competitors. This is an extremely important part of your business planning. (please see our previous blog at www.hiveconnex.com on Competitive Intelligence.) This step is an ongoing process that you must incorporate into your business or organization whether you are new or established already. New competitors present themselves daily and you must always be on the forefront on how you will pivot if necessary, and navigate any changes or additions in your industry’s landscape.
Information that you should look at as you complete your competitive research include:
Who are your current competitors?
Who are the founders or leaders of those companies?
What does their marketing look like?
What does their branding say about them?
How do they communicate to their customers?
What are their core proposition values?
How large are they compared to you, (i.e., Employee size, revenue, market share?)
You should also know and conduct research on your target audience. As a business leader you should be clear on :
Who are they?
What are they looking for in a product?
What problem are they looking to solve by using your goods or services?
What are their demographic, ei., age, income level, geography?
What is the best way to reach them, social media, traditional advertisement, email blasts, digital ads, etc.?
Learning about your key customers will provide you with the information necessary to create a process of distribution for your product, create customer loyalty and establish you in your chosen industry. Customers will appreciate and be loyal to a product provider that understands them, values them and provides them with the goods or services that meet their needs.
Without knowing your market/competitors, conducting a deep dive into what these competitors are doing and creating an action plan based on that information, you will find it difficult to garner your market share nor your place in the playing field.
“If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.”
~ Jack Welch
Once you have gathered all this information and before you create a business plan, using this information, you must conduct a SWOT analysis. It's important to know exactly where your business stands and what is out there in the external environment that could have a negative impact on your business. A SWOT analysis will allow you to break your business down into sections, so that you can identify its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Check back with us soon on for more information on SWOT analyses and steps on how to properly produce one. The information gathered through a SWOT analysis will give you important information as you complete and organize your competitive research.
Having good information creates that much desired competitive advantage that will allow you to build your marketing, branding and communication plans. It will help you determine your value proposition and how to share it with your customers. It will provide you with information on how to best price your product or services and what other goods or services you could provide more or less of. Basically, learning what your competitive advantages are will aid you in creating a story for your business that will resonate with your customers and draw them in, which will in turn grow your business or organization.
Gathering information and building a business plan around your competitive advantages is an arduous, but much needed task in creating a successful business or organization and solidifying your market share. Always know what your industry and competitors are doing. Just know the successful ones are already watching you and your next move.
If you, your business and/or organization needs support with competitive research gathering, SWOT analysis, business planning, business auditing, and business development, please check out HIVE Connex's Services, and schedule a complimentary consultation to determine your business needs. Please contact us via email at HIVEConnex@gmail.com, dial (267) 420-2076 or contact us.
Feel free to contact us directly with any questions on this particular blog topic, or any of our other HIVE Connex Blog Posts at www.hiveconnex.com.
HIVE Connex provides coaching, mentoring and training on growing successful businesses. We’ll work with you on business planning, auditing, competitive intelligence gathering, the benefits of process improvement, how to grow your business, creating a vision board for your business, branding, public speaking, creating a social media presence, business communication practices, business ethics, how to generate profit margins, building high performance teams, business elevator pitch, community engagement and budget administration. Call us today!