The business emphasizes self-development – ‘always be the best you can be.’ It is self-development in search of being better than yourself to be better than the competition. Business, after all, has an affinity to the sport.
To be successful, a business must be able to distinguish itself among heavily competitive markets. Much like developing yourself, doing so requires openness, reflection, and a willingness to work hard.
Businesses that invest in training their employees are already well on their way to gaining a strong standing: having the best possible people in their roles is a significant advantage over others. However, there are other things to consider. Here are a few tips for how to shift the margins in your business’s favour.
Prioritise the Customer
It is easy to get caught up in the development of the product or service and neglect the investment in your customer’s experience. There is a desire for the product or service to sell itself and maintain your relationship with the customer.
However, prioritizing the customer is a much more sustainable and immediate way of being competitive in the market. While growth is key to a successful business, keeping existing customers happy not only avoids high churn but, also, supplements growth because, as studies have shown, they are cheaper to sell new products to and more likely to spend more than new customers.
Customer relation management software helps achieve this. It automates the creation of customer profiles as some as an inquiry is made, storing appropriate registered details. This will also keep all the correspondences attached to the customer’s profile too, ensuring a smooth transition and recontextualizing between each interaction which breeds a healthy familiarity.
Trust is key. A customer must trust that you are doing the best for them. Insurance is an often-overlooked means of reassuring customers. Not only does it protect your business with contractors’ insurance or general liability insurance, but it conveys that if anything goes wrong then they are prepared.
Know the competition
In business, like in sport, it’s tough to be successful without knowing the competition. It’s imperative to keep up-to-date with how the market is changing and current trends to be competitive and successful.
With this knowledge, you can keep pricing competitive by ensuring that they are closely aligned with general trends. Outpricing yourself isn’t healthy whether you offer a product or service to suit the big or small businesses.
Also, being familiar with your competitors allows you to develop a niche, find that gap in the market that you can take advantage of. This niche could be an angle for your product, which will cater to the market more totally or resolve a complaint that customers have had. It could also be a storytelling (marketing) one. Your business could craft a brand image or series of content that would strike a chord with your existing and potential customer base.
Keep pushing
Never giving up ground to your competition is essential to being at the top of your game and the wider market. Continuing to innovate – be it the product, customer service, marketing, partnerships, or the training of employees – cannot be overdone.
Apple is great at all these (though, they do have certain luxuries to capitalize on). They made the decision with the first iPhone to not run Flash Player (than the industry standard) on their devices because Steve Jobs believed it wasn’t the best on the market, and have since routinely developed new technology.
A good example is the most recent announcement of their MacBook Pro M1, which will feature their first laptop processor. Continuing to push the market forward, force competitors’ hand to position you towards the pinnacle.
