How to compete in business strategy # 3

The reason I didn’t write all of these strategies in one post was that, that would have made that post way too long and majority of people don’t like lengthy articles, so I have divided it into four easy, digestible parts or four strategies that your business can utilize to compete.

If you want better results in terms of market growth, sales, brand awareness, then follow the order or series of these strategies strictly, for instance go for strategy 2 only if strategy 1 doesn't give you the results you desire, because these strategies follow a logical step by step approach that delivers maximum results, which you may not be able to get if you follow as per your own choice.

Though there is possibility that some of you might had been through those first two steps (strategies) and are now in brand/business life where this particular strategy makes more sense, those Entrepreneurs may follow this step (strategy # 3).

Competing in Business Strategy # 3

So with previous two strategies

How to compete in business Strategy # 1 & Strategy # 2

Hope you have achieved the desired results, for those who haven’t read these two strategies above should read them first and once after application of those strategies you should start with this one.

And yeah by reading, following the above two strategies you will better understand why this one comes in the third place (along with other points in it) instead of being the first or second one.

Now to achieve even better results, let’s consider this strategy and see if you can compete in business, achieve further growth with this one.

Strategy Number 3: Increase Product/Service Variety

Since you have been utilizing the previous two strategies and have earned quite good amount in terms of net profit, now is the time to invest some of that money to increase variety of your products/services.

Why you need to increase Product/Service Variety now ?!!

• Well because you are dealing with target buyers (retailers, agents, wholesalers, distributors) most of whom just don’t buy many of your present products/services and so you need to provide them more variety and thus your daily sales per target buyer will increases consequently increase in your market penetration, growth, ROI. 

• You and your team have been in the market for some years now and so you know what new variety will result in good ROI, therefore you should go for further variety, new products/services.

• Since you have developed relationships and reasonable brand awareness by utilizing the previous two strategies, it is high time to get more out of those relationships, brand reputation, awareness and one way to do that is to increase your product/service variety.

• Entering market in startup days is really tough and now since after utilizing the previous two strategies you have made a good market entry, made your brand presence felt, achieved reasonable brand awareness, market trust that means you are now in good position to introduce much more product/service variety without much risk or worry.

• Your experience as an Entrepreneur, Startup Manager, CEO, Sales Expert, as a Manufacturer and that of your team has increased to a reasonable level and so now you can count on yourself and on your team to introduce successful new products/services with healthy ROI in long run.

• Lots of companies expand their businesses, increase their market share, achieve further growth by introducing further variety and so should you!

 

Important Things to Remember

• Go for product/service variety that has TOMA (Read strategy # 1) that you can efficiently and effectively manage with your current available resources. TOMA stands for top of the mind awareness.

• Remember: Consider your brand exposure, awareness, quality, relationships in the market when setting price, so you don’t leave money on the table or overcharge your buyers thus resulting in client dissatisfaction, loss in vital business relationships, net profits etc.

Fact: According to a research, Pricing is the most difficult marketing decision for Managers [1], so be really careful!

• Make sure you don’t repeat mistakes that you have when you first launched your brand, your products/services.

• Set the current set of goals, targets, aims in terms of sales, market penetration, client dealing, quality as the minimum standard that you must achieve with the new variety, yes it will take some time though.

• Keep in mind don’t go for entirely new product ideas no matter how appealing they are unless you have some real “REALLY REAL” objective reasons that you will have healthy ROI. Go with products/services that are in demand, like majority of businesses experiment with the already available products/services with demand in the market, just make sure your unique selling proposition is good enough to make your brand stand out!

Fact: Nearly 50 percent of new products introduced in the market are complete failures and more than 70 percent do not reach their sales goals [2].

That’s it, in the next article I will suggest another key strategy (final step) to compete in business, that will make it a total of four strategies that your small business can utilize to compete in business.

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Over to you guys!

You may like 3 Major Competitors Types that every Business Must Compete with!

 

References:  

1. Dolan, R.J. and Simon, D. (1996), Power Pricing: How Managing Price Transforms the Bottom Line, The Free Press, New York, NY.

2. Delre, S.A., Jager, W., Bijmolt, T.H.A. and Janssen, M.A. (2007), “Targeting and timing promotional activities: an agent-based model for the takeoff of new products”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 60 No. 8, pp. 826-835.