Startup: How to Compete in Business-Strategy # 2

Okay last time I shared a strategy for newly started businesses on how to compete, I got an email asking me that overall strategy was good but they were facing problems when it came to achieving further growth.

Main point of that email was, they were facing immense competition; they did achieve sales and certain percentage of growth but beyond that it seemed almost impossible and so they wanted to know if there is anything else they can do to fix it ? to get the steady growth going…

I asked them about the product/service type they were offering and it came to my knowledge that what they were offering was pretty ubiquitous (offered by too many brands), thus facing immense competition in the market.

So… the point is if you came through internet to this website, searching for a neat, easy, objective, result delivering strategy for your startup, you should first check the article mentioned above, right in the beginning, if in case it doesn’t fix your problems or provides a partial fix just like this business then you should utilize the approach I am about to discuss.

So go for that one first and then read this one after that!

Remember this strategy will only work for retailers, why ? Because it’s nature is as such!

I will explain that in a second.

Strategy Number 2!

You should utilize this strategy only if previous strategy (mentioned above) partially delivers or fails (not likely though) or you just simply aren’t satisfied with the growth, you want more!

So let's get to it, the first step is starting with other brands.

Start with other Brands (high value products, services)

Starting with other brands means, you should buy other high value relevant brands (products/services) in bulk and sell it to your target buyers (retailers) through your sales team.

See, that’s why I said “because it’s nature is as such!” because you can’t buy in bulk and then sell it to Wholesalers unless you become a Distributor, which is impossible as it is more likely that you have invested all of your money in your startup and that getting distribution of high value brands will cost a lot, thus impossible for you to afford distribution, besides you want to give all of your efforts, time to your startup, to succeed, don’t you ?!

You can act like a wholesaler (selling only to retailers) though because that doesn’t require that much investment, compared to having a distribution.

Now let me explain, how offering other relevant high value brands to your target buyers (retailers) by being a wholesaler can help your startup in achieving more market share, growth.

For instance your startup got 1%-5% market share in a specific market region and getting further market share (in that particular region) even with having experienced sales staff on the job, is proving to be really tough, almost impossible.

Now in such situation, what you should do is to buy relevant high value brands in bulk that your target buyers (retailers) would love to have on their shelf.

So once you start on touching new retailers in that specific region you should offer those high value products/services along with your items and soon by leverage of those high value brands you can get your products/services on more shelves consequently more growth thus more profits.

Key Points to Remember!

1.      Relationship marketing is key, your sales guys won’t be able to pull this off in the first shot, so you need to be patient and let them work on it, it will start delivering results when your sales guys visit those retailers for at least 6^th or 10^th time, that means developing a relationship.

2.      Make sure you conduct an objective survey and have taken input from your experienced sales staff because due to their experience they know exactly what are the high value brands that your target buyers (retailers) would like to have on their shelf.

3.      Offer low prices even if that means very little in profits out of those high value brands, because it’s worth it! Because once you get your brand in there, you will be making really good money (winks!).

4.      Follow-up is key, make sure your sales guys do a constant, un-annoying follow-up.

That’s it, in upcoming articles I will be discussing two more strategies, that will further improve your startup ROI, delivering more growth.


Here is a link to 3rd strategy in this series How to compete in business Strategy # 3

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