How to Position Your Company Against the Competition

While sales-ready Internet leads from Sales Star Networks are an excellent source of business prospects, they introduce new challenges to a sales team. Our members say the biggest challenge for them is finding a way to differentiate their service from competitors. Prospects are looking to comparison shop vendors. This generally means that they want a few quotes so that they can find the best solution for their situation.

In order to best position your company against the competition, you need to develop your own Unique Selling Position (USP). This is what differentiates your business. It should be the focus of all your marketing and sales efforts. It might be service, price, selection or any other factor that separates you from other solutions.

To create a USP requires committing to a careful analysis of your business, including examination of your products and services, your market, your position in the market, and your business's strengths and weaknesses. Commonly know as a SWOT analysis.

Know Thyself

A marketing analysis is best performed by including your key employees in a brainstorming session. Their frontline experience will help you develop a realistic understanding of your business. You should examine strengths and weaknesses in the following areas:

• Profitability
• Product Quality
• Customer Service
• Productivity
• Financial Resources
• Operations
• Distribution

You might consider asking open ended questions like: Are we losing or gaining customers? Are we losing or gaining market share or maintaining the status quo? Are we losing or gaining sales volume? Are we experiencing cash flow problems? What is our employee turnover? Are we letting a competitor set the pace?

Know Thy Market

Next, look at external business environment. These areas include current customers, prospects, competitors, technology, political climate, government and other regulatory organizations, and the economic environment. For example, consider how desktop publishing revolutionized the typesetting and printing industries, and how the events of 9/11 and the Internet have challenged the trade show industry.

To begin your analysis, select five strengths and opportunities, and five weaknesses and threats. Knowing these will help you identify and develop marketing strategies. For example, do you have an area of expertise worth promoting? Are you undercapitalized? Is your market growing or shrinking?

Know Thy Competition

Those pesky competitors are perhaps the biggest impediment to achieving your marketing goals - your's is not the only business looking to your target markets for the next sale. Start assessing the competitive environment by identifying your immediate competitors. Who are they? What do they do better than you? What do you do better than them? Are they investing in research and development, a new product line or technology? What are their target markets? What image are they trying to project? Are they heavily in debt?

You can quickly determine your position in the marketplace by identifying the unique selling proposition of your products and services. What makes your product or service stand out from the competition? Is it quality, price, convenience, style, location or professionalism? The goal is to develop an image in the marketplace that you offer something special that your competitors do not.

Remember to be thorough in assessing the competition. Start by gathering these basic facts about your five largest competitors:

• Business Name and Address
• Who are the key employees?
• How many employees are on the payroll?
• How many years have they been in business?
• What are annual sales? How many units?
• What share of the market do they own?
• Who are their key customers?

Supplier relationships are a good source of competitive intelligence. There is nothing sneaky or unethical about gathering and using information. It's part of being in business.

There are a number of ways to obtain information on the competition – from the scanning of financial and trade publications or hiring a clipping service, or simply searching on the Internet.

Maintaining files on the five most direct competitors can yield big dividends for a relatively small amount of time and energy. Place every bit of information you can glean in the files. Clip advertisements and articles about their products or employee promotions. Want ads can help you estimate growth and track key personnel changes. Clip anything that gives you a handle on their positioning or pricing strategies. Attend trade shows or trade association meetings, and gather brochures and other collateral material they are distributing. Visit their websites often to stay abreast of expanding lines or new product introductions.

Once a month, spend a few minutes reviewing your files to determine if patterns are developing. Track how often your competitors advertise and in which publications. Study their advertising message to determine their positioning strategies. Look at the image they are conveying to determine their target markets. Some questions to consider during competitive intelligence gathering include: Is your competitor purchasing additional property? Building a new facility, or closing one? Developing a new image? Changing its positioning or pricing strategy? Redesigning products? Conducting professional or market research? Expanding markets or abandoning them? Increasing or reducing advertising frequency?

You can use a simple form as a quick reference on your position versus that of your competitors. This form has three columns: customers want; competitor provides; and we provide. Place the following items (and add your own for your particular market) under the customers want category - quality, low price, high price, wide product line, deep product line, product information, reliability, warranty, location, just-in-time delivery, accessories and spare parts, and well-trained technicians - then let your analysis determine how you fill in the next two columns. Any field that there is a hole is an opportunity to exploit.