A business should vanquish an enemy without vying. With the right skills-set, you can thrive in any industry, outgrow competitors, and leave your rivals far behind.
Although when a business constantly fails to outgrow — or at least cope with — its competitors, it may end up losing sales.
However, running a business is no plain sailing. According to SBA (Small Business Association), 20% of new companies fail in their first year, while only 50% survive through their fifth year.
One of the many blunders they make down the road is that they overlook the competitors.
Having competitors is inevitable; you cannot survive while keeping your eyes closed, pretending they do not exist. You have to burst your own bubble and buckle up to develop skills that can help you outperform all others in your industry.
History has it that behind every successful business is a competitor it tries to subdue and without cutthroat competition, no business can grow.
YouTube once was the only video-sharing giant and now we have Vimeo, Dailymotion, Flickr, Twitch, Metacafe, and so on.
Same goes for Facebook; the pioneer of social media is now competing with its own platform – Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn just to name a few.
The only key to survive is to surpass your business rivals in your industry.
5 Skills to Outgrow Competitors
Here are the 5 skills that can make you stand ahead of your competitors in business:
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Surpass The Competitors Through Innovation Skill
The world has had enough of refining already existing solutions; people are more eager about new, more innovative solutions. Many businesses today are relying on innovation to give a tough time to their competitors.
Take Meituan Dianping, the Chinese app maker and one of the 50 most innovative companies of 2019 according to Fast Company’s list.
They have a bundle of apps connecting its users with local businesses offering movie tickets, food delivery, and hotel reservations. The company last year acquired a bike sharing company.
They have evolved to meet consumers’ needs which is why there is a 38% increase in the customer usage of Meituan as compared to the previous year.
Google, the search engine giant, has been evolving for almost 20 years. They:
- acquired YouTube, one of the biggest video sharing platform in 2006
- constructed a line of Android smartphones (Pixels)
- launched a variety of products including:
- Google Drive
- Images
- Google+ (gone now)
- Gmail
- Google Chrome
They also stepped into the AI industry. All this to get a clear leap over its competitors.
Takeaway: Be friends with innovation and do not be afraid of taking risks. You will always find new entrants disrupting the market. Only being innovative will save your company from being wiped out.
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Act Before Your Competitors To Get First-Mover Advantage
First-mover advantage is the potential of a company to bring a new product category to market. Doing so can set it ahead of its competitors and, most importantly, allow it to capture large market share.
Uber may not be the first ride-sharing company, as people had carpool lanes long before. But Uber was certainly the largest and most successful one because it had the first-mover advantage.
If you know your targeted market and what works best for you, reach them as soon as possible. Don’t spare a single customer and leave no stone unturned.
Since your competitors have solutions to the same problems your products are fixing, you need to capture the audience before your competitors do.
Even if your product is far better than theirs, you must not risk letting them get ahead first.
Takeaway: Aim for achieving the first-mover advantage. Besides acting before your competitors, you need to have market dominance if you want a potential advantage.
-
Get a Powerful Business Image
Customers won’t believe you until they are sure of your credibility. For that, you need to have a solid brand image. Start with an attractive logo design.
If you don’t have enough budget to hire a dedicated logo designer, there are many AI based logo design tools online allowing the users to get the best logo template.
You should also have a well-designed, user-friendly website and presence on all possible touchpoints. Make sure every aspect of your brand image fully represents your unique selling points.
McDonald’s is recognized by its golden arches, which can be easily seen at a place full of distraction. Its logo is so powerful that the burger and fries cravings strike the customers whenever they look at its logo.
The powerful branding of McDonald’s sets it apart from all other food chains.
Takeaway: Make a powerful name in your industry — or at least a reliable one. You want your customers to know they can buy from without being fear of being scammed.
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Focus On Your Unique Selling Points
What makes your business different from your competitors? Your unique selling points or USPs will give you a competitive advantage over your competitors.
However, the USP is not always unique.
Confused?
What differentiates Pepsi from Coca-Cola? They both are popular soft drinks with similar characteristics except for the taste.
Pepsi is sugary in flavor and Coca Cola tastes like raisin vanilla. However, Pepsi is more focused on sports and music while Coca-Cola believes in sharing and creating relationships.
At least, that is what they have had their audience believe.
Takeaway: Your USP matters. It is not about being unique but presenting the brand in a way that makes it look unique.
-
Prosper Your Business with Intelligence Skill
No business can progress if it stays ignorant of its competitors. An intelligent business will look for the shortcomings of its competitors and use them as its own strength.
A SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat) analysis of a company tells so much about its competitiveness.
Apple’s strengths are a strong brand image, greater profit margins, and constantly evolving innovation-led processes.
The high selling price of the product is the downside; however, the brand has given a tough time to all of its competitors.
Takeaway: Using the SWOT process, you can easily identify all strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and devise the right roadmap to leap over others in your market.
These are the five skills to exploit in order to get neck-to-neck with your customers, if not ahead of them. You can incorporate them into your essential business practices.
Ready to Outgrow Your Competitors?
Always remember that healthy competition is beneficial. You should be ready to compete with your competitors without shying away.
The competition will force you to learn many new skills down the road that will make your business stronger and more competitive.
Ayesha Ambreen
Latest posts by Ayesha Ambreen (see all)
- 5 Skills You’ll Need To Outgrow Competitors In Business! - August 20, 2019
Very helpful and informative article. We have used online marketing to improve our business. Thanks a lot sharing the valuable information for User.
Thanks for sharing this great article. This is nice post to understand Business requirement and compete with others.
Hi,
This is nice post for competitors in business article and have seen better way of growing here, Thanks a lot for sharing with us .
Hi Ayesha,
Amazing article! This really gives a lot of positive thoughts and energy to outtake my competition. Please keep writing and inspiring.
Honestly, I really like your article content and thank you for posting and sharing great stuff with all of us.
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Ayesha,
You have rightly suggested the importance on “Unique Selling Points” . Unfortunately, most of the Business people realise the importance Unique selling points after many years of failures only.
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I loved these tips and I loved the “Innovation” part from the list…..
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Information provided by you is very useful for all. A sharp-witted entrepreneur is that who keep all the necessary point in his mind.
Hi Ayesha,
Wow! Good job for bringing this all together and providing relevant, timely information for businesses to thrive in their respective industry. Sometimes, businesses underestimate their competitors and that doesn’t end up well. With the tips you provided, it serves as an eye-opener for business owners out there. It’s time that we pay more attention to outgrowing our competitors, outsmarting them and leading the way. Thanks!
Very simple ways and tactics to implement. I would love to read more such articles.
Hello Ayesha,
First of all thank you so much for providing great knowladge. I recently started a new online business related to clothing and this article helps me to understand to beat competitior and also its motivate me. Thanks
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Innovation is the clue, you must have competitive advantage.
Thanks for the article Ayesha
Hi Ayesha, You have shared tons of valuable information which I was struggling daily to find how to beat competitors your article helps a lot. As you mentioned above Yeah..! I agree through competitors will learn many things and we can improve our skills that’s make the business stronger. I picked up a few new tips from your article which I could implement. Do keep sharing more articles like this. Thanks:-)
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Very helpful and informative article. We have used online marketing to improve our business. Now we are trying for better improvement with your advice’s which you mentioned here.
Waiting for your next post.
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Nice article Ayesha. In business, it is important to know the strategies of your competitors. If a person wants to start blogging or to observe the techniques of SEO and social media marketing, then he can take help from
https://funnelxmaster.com/bing-bang-profits-review this article or can visit FunnelXMaster.
It is not easy to beat competitors, but you have useful tips here!
You really have lit a fire under me to surpass every competition that comes in my way. Thanks for all the great tips and I will make sure to act on it.
You are most welcome Amit. Which did you like the best?
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Nice article. I would like to add these points,
Give your BEST to the clients/ customers. Be sincere to them. Never mind about profit for a few months of your startup.
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Thanks for the insight. Will take these to heart… It’s definitely hard to catch up to competitors who already have a huge lead on you. But once you get there, don’t let up!
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I love that quote by the Linkedin co-founder…
What im doing with my small business is always looking at competitors and finding ways to make my features better than theirs. This can be achieved even in simple ways, such as making something more user-friendly or providing a slight discount.
Most importantly, dont give up when things get rough (and they WILL get rough).
Elvis
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It’s not that easy to beat the competition in business. But this article shared some cool tips and this will definitely help to learn more. It is very important to understand why your competitor is successful first and then try to find out something better to outrank them. Thanks for sharing this awesome guide.
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Having competitors is a good thing. It means that your niche is viable. The trick is to nichge down even further and build a brand.
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Hello Ayesha,
Online Marketing Is One Of The Biggest Topics People Are Talking About. Everyone Is Trying To Build Their market. But As You Have Mentioned, People Should Focus On Unique Selling Points.
I Have Never Used SWOT but will be analyzed soon.
lots of things I have earned from this post, hope in future you will update more helpful Article.
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Thanks for this great article. You really highlighted some of the key skills that everyone should master.
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No words as unique selling points or USPs will give you a competitive advantage over your competitors
Also, businesses need to engage with an existing customer which is more essential to earn trust from the existing customers to engage in repurchase and stay loyal to the brands.
It makes perfect sense, sounds so simple. And like all things that appear simple, not so easy to do.thank you so much for this info/knowledge.
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