‘Buy or bury the competition’ said iconic former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch. And whilst it might seem a little aggressive, the underlying point is a critical one: not taking action to challenge the competition is not an option. Every one of your competitors could potentially eat your lunch – or, at least, the tastiest bits of it.
A quick look at the maths paints a sobering picture. There are 5.51 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. Last year alone, 900,000 new businesses were incorporated, setting a new record.
But business sectors rarely expand in number, so new businesses generally play into existing spaces, and the figures we’ve cited above show those spaces are getting ever more crowded.
In Bedfordshire, which is third out of six regions in the UK for new company formations, 9,015 new businesses started in 2023, so here, too, the competition is hotting up.
How, then, do you make sure you get ahead of it?
Know exactly what you’re up against
It might sound obvious, but the first step to outperforming the competition is understanding exactly who they are, what they’re offering, and what their strengths and weaknesses are.
It’s pretty rare that you can go head-to-head with a competitor on every front, but by focusing in this way on where they don’t do things as well as you, you can strengthen and talk up these aspects of your own products and services.
At the same time, ask yourself the question: ‘Why do these guys do some things better than us?’ You might find that you can learn from this – or, indeed, that excellence in these areas isn’t likely to be optimally profitable for you anyway.
Understand who you’re selling to – and sell more
Understanding what your customers (and potential customers) value, and how you tailor your offering to meet their requirements, can also help you stay ahead of the competition – but beware, customer expectations can change dramatically!
What are your customers most focused on? Price? Premium service? The newest and latest products? Or organisational values like sustainability, ethical sourcing and environmental accreditations?
Engage your customers in dialogue and find what out makes them tick, and what the itch is that your products and services help them to scratch. This will be useful not only in helping you to steal a march on your competitors now, but in identifying new target customers moving forward.
Major on marketing
There’s a marketing saying that says ‘share of voice in a downturn equals share of market after it’. And as the UK economy and its businesses have indeed experienced some difficult times recently, it’s a timely reminder of the importance of raising your business’s offering above the noise – including that generated by your competitors.
But a note of caution: although effective marketing (in the form of promotion) can be achieved at low cost – through social media campaigns, for example – the twin keys to success are consistency of message and integration of marketing channels.
This requires careful planning to create a sustained marketing campaign that is segmented and targeted, so you’re constantly pushing the right buttons with customers and prospects depending on where they are in the decision-making cycle.
Consider bringing on board a marketing agency to help you with this – it’ll involve some additional expense, but ultimately it will make the campaign work harder and deliver return on investment.
Put it this way: your competitors would like nothing more than for you to go out with a marketing campaign that doesn’t land well and negates all the internal effort that has gone into it!
Connect, connect, connect!
The right connections can help deliver additional value to every one of the activities I’ve mentioned above – and a great example of this is engaging with a body like your local Chamber of Commerce.
Becoming a Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce member, for example, connects you to over 750 businesses in the region, with around 55,000 employees, and through regular networking events and meet-ups you can explore the competition first-hand (as well as identify opportunities for partnerships, and sales prospects, of course.)
At the same time, membership means your business achieves greater exposure than your non-member competitors, as it’s automatically included in our member directory, promoted on social media, and featured as a new member on our website and in our Business Focus member magazine.
Improved access to funding and skills is also a high priority for the Chamber, as we know these are both instrumental in enabling you to better understand and outperform your competitors.
Our members run regular webinars to enable you to learn things that your competitors won’t necessarily know and that could also appeal strongly to your customers as differentiators. Recently, these have included export and global trade (for which the Chamber also has a specialist department), carbon footprint reduction and employer safety, amongst others.
And when it comes to securing funding for that all-important, competitor-beating customer survey, market research project, or marketing campaign, the Chamber is on hand to help locate additional sources of finance, from grants, to matched funding, loans and equity investment.
In short, for competitive advantage, the Chamber’s the place to come!
For more information on becoming a Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce member, call the friendly team on 01582 522448, or visit www.chamber-business.com
